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GAIL HAMILTON 

AUTHOR OF "country LIVING AND COUNTRY THINKING,' 

"gala-days," etc. 



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B O ST O N 
TICKNOR AND FIELDS 

1864 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 

TICK NOR AND FIELDS, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



Zy '2, a J( 



THIRD EDITIO^^ 



Uxi\'ERsiTY Press: 

Welch, B i g e l o w , and Company, 

Cambridge. 



Con 



TENTS. 



Page 

I. The Outs and the Ins i 

11. The Fitness of Things .... 9 

III. Ordinances . ... . . .43 

IV. Church-Sittings 82 

V. A View from the Pews . . . .110 

VI. Prayer-Meetings 149 

VII. The Proof of your Love . . . .180 

VIII. Controversies . 224 

IX. Amusements 260 

X. God's Way 300 

XI. The Law of Christ . ' . . . . 323 

XIL Praying 358 

XIII. Forgiveness . . . . . . -375 

XIV. Error 388 

XV. Words without Knowledge . . . .401 





THE OUTS AND THE INS. 



\ 




^ HE World and the Church are two op- 
posing forces. To make everything 
move easily, the Church ought to be 
i entirely composed of good people and 
the World of bad. As matters stand, there are 
a great many sinners in the Church and a great 
many saints in the World. Moreover, the people 
who are good are not good all the way through, 
and the people who are bad have many excel- 
lent qualities, — which complicates the case still 
further. Also, the Church is and should be ag- 
gressive, for the avowed design of its Leader is 
to reign till he hath put all things under his 
feet. But its chief weapon should be love ; and 
because it will not confine itself to this weapon, it 
is far less aggressive than it should be. Instead 
of loving the sinner while hating the sin, it often 
falls into a way of loving itself and hating the 
sinner. The World, being a very observant, as 



2 THE OUTS AND THE INS. 

well as a very wicked World, sees this, and falls 
to making reprisals. It gathers together the sins 
of Christians, and builds thereof a bulwark for it- 
self against. Christianity, behind which it pours its 
small shot into the Church.---In all this the "World 
is entirely wrong, though the Church is very far 
from right. The World, in the first place, makes 
the mistake of thinking that, when a man "joins 
the church, '^-he steps out of the sphere of ordi- 
nary humanity, is to be measured by different 
standards, and is amenable to new laws, — stand- 
ards and laws which have no relation to other men. 
His faults and foibles immediately assume a new 
importance. His movements are watched with 
careful scrutiny, and criticised with rigid severity. 
Failings become vices ; faults, crimes ; and an im- 
perfect man, a hypocrite. Constitutional tenden- 
cies to particular sins, formerly unmarked or but 
slightly noticed, are first exaggerated, and then 
turned into an occasion for innuendoes and sneers, 
if not against the Christian religion, at least against 
its profession and its professors. 

This is all wrong. It is founded on a wrong 
idea. What is it to "join the church " ? " Does 
he profess to be a good man ? " I once heard a 
person ask ; and many people seem to fancy that 
when a man joins the church he professes to be 
good^ — better than other people; and they ac- 
cordingly set themselves to work to ascertain and 
prove that he is not. But is there a church in the 



THE OUTS AND THE INS. 3 

land that requires its members to make a profes- 
sion of goodness ? I never heard of such a one. 
Those who enter into church covenants profess 
to love Christ, and promise to obey his commands, 
and to watch over each other ; but I never heard 
a single individual declare himself to be good, 
holy, righteous. "Joining the church" is rather 
a profession of belief in and love of God, and of 
an intention to do his will. This is done, first, 
because Christ is supposed to have ordained some 
such profession ; secondly, because each man, en- 
dowin-g his own weakness with his brother's 
strength, is supposed thereby to be better able to 
resist temptation, and to grow in grace ; and, 
thirdly, because the Christianization of the world 
is expected to be sooner effected by ranging the 
guns, than by letting each man fire his shot at 
random. I know no other profession and no other 
purpose. In what respect, then, does this place a 
man on a new plane ? He simply promises to do 
what it is the imperative duty of every human 
being to do. No possible vow can increase its 
imperativeness. The acknowledgment of obliga- 
tion does not create obligation. The recognition 
of relation does not establish relation. Every hu- 
man being owes allegiance to God. All that he 
has and all that he is belongs now and forever to 
God. No contract can increase, and no absence 
of contract can diminish, the weight of such ob- 
ligation. 



4 THE OUTS AND THE INS. 

It follows, then, that church-members and non- 
church-members are to be judged bj the same 
rule. No duties are incumbent on the one that 
are not incumbent on the other. I do not mean 
to imply that the standard by which Christians are 
measured should be lowered. Lowered ? Heaven 
forbid ! No one is in dancrer of failina; because he 
sets his mark too high. The grander the attempt, 
the grander the achievement.' It is only by fol- 
lowing on to know the Lord, that we learn to 
know him at all. Let not one jot or tittle be 
taken from the measure of the stature of the ful- 
ness of Christ.^ But what I do say is, that a 
non-church-member has no rio;ht to consider an 
act sinful in a church-member that would not 
be sinful in himself; nor a sinful act to be any 
more so in the one than in the other. If it is 
wrong for a church-member to steal, to com- 
mit forgery, to drink wine, to gamble, to piay 
cards, to mend his tools on Sunday, to stay away 
from church, to be crabbed, fretful, impatient, 
violent-tempered, it is also wrong, and equally 
wrong, for a non-church-member. For a man 
to excuse wrong-doing in himself, on the plea 
that he does not belong to the church, or to exag- 
gerate it in others on the plea that they do, is 
absurd. He ouo;ht to belona^ to the church. He 
ought to have that state of heart and will which 
would justify him in joining it. If it is the duty 
of one, it is the duty of all. If Christ has left, 



THE OUTS AND THE INS. 5 

and if the history of the world gives, intimations 
that the glory of God and the good of man can be 
best promoted by organization, then it is the duty, 
not of A and B only, but of the whole alphabet, 
to organize. If A and B, who have signed the 
compact, do not live according to it, it is not for 
C, who stands aloof, to complain of them, or to ex- 
ult over them. His own guilt is farther back than 
theirs. However wrong they may be, they have 
taken one step towards the right, which he has not. 

If two children in a family sign a paper, signi- 
fying that they will love, respect, and obey their 
parents, do they owe love, honor, and obedience 
any more than the other children, who have not 
si2:ned it ? If, notwithstandins: their written aoree- 
ment, they fall into disobedience, does it indicate 
that they are more blameworthy than the other 
children who also fall into disobedience ? Not at 
all. It only shows that the contract, in their case, 
has failed of its intended effect. 

Just so, it may be said, violation of church cov- 
enant shows the invalidity of such covenants. It 
does in that one case ; that is all. It indicates 
that in that individual the principle of evil has 
overleaped the restraints ; that he was wrong in 
supposing that he loved Christ, and willed to serve 
him ; or that, loving him, it was with a faint and 
fluctuating emotion, and not with tliat perfect love 
against which the waves of temptation surge and 
dash and break in vain. 



6 THE OUTS AND THE INS. 

I do not propose to enter Into a discussion of 
the effectiveness of church organization. I wish 
only to say that the derehctlon of one, two, or a 
dozen, or a hundred individuals, does not show it 
to be worthless. So long as men have the power 
to deceive themselves and to deceive others, so 
long will there be many in the church who are not 
of the church. In order to demonstrate that 
church organization is useless, it will be necessary 
to divide our country, or any nominally Christian 
country, into two classes, — those who belong to a 
church, and those who do not ; and then to show 
that morality and religion, purity of heart and life 
and practical benevolence, are equally distributed 
between these two classes. It may not be that this 
will solve the problem, but nothing short of this 
will. Even should we be able to find no good in 
such organizations, indications of Christ's will still 
remaining, there would be no choice as to our 
duty. I do not think, however, that the result of 
such an investigation would throw the question 
back upon the teachings of Christ. 

Again, the fact that a man commits sin after 
joining the church does not necessarily prove 
him to be a hypocrite or a self-deceiver. Sin — a 
sin — is too widely spread, and too deeply rooted 
in the human heart, to be extirpated In a moment. 
The axe has, indeed, been laid at the root of the 
tree. Its gnarled trunk, unseemly branches, and 
poisonous leaves have disappeared, and the man 



THE OUTS AND THE INS. 7 

fondly believes that his sin will trouble him no 
more ; but anon green shoots sprout up round 
about, showing him that the roots are there, drink- 
ing in sustenance from the springs of his life. 
Then he digs about them, diving deep into the 
soil, undermining, plucking up, trampling under 
foot, and burning ; but it may be the work of a 
lifetime, and never, never in this world shall the 
garden of his soul go back to the velvet verdure 
of^den, but remain a rugged, upheaved patch, — 
fertile, it may be, but irregular ; productive, but 
uncouth ; a vineyard of the Lord, but not the land 
of Beulah. 

For it is the baleful nature of all sin, that, though 
never so bitterly repented of, it leaves a scar. 

If a man has lived in selfishness, if he has rioted 
in- wine and wantonness, if he has found his pleas- 
ure in heaping up wealth, if he has never re- 
strained his tongue or his temper, it is not improb- 
able "that, after his conversion, even though it be 
real, he will sometimes lapse into his former wrong 
habits. He will see Clirist, but it will be through 
a glass, darkly, and the glass will be colored by 
the peculiarities of his own character. The ava- 
ricious man will have many a hard fight against 
-avarice, and will perhaps sometimes succumb. The 
untruthful man will keep out many a lie that 
comes battering at his barred gate, though a sly 
little falsehood may elude his vigilance, nay, even 
take advantage of it, and worm itself in through 



8 THE OUTS AND THE INS. 

a crevice. The World will not see the many con- 
tests, the frequent victories, but only the one defeat ; 
and seeing this, will be ready to exclaim, " If this 
is what comes of your Christianity, I am very well 
content without it." 

World, you are in the wrong. This is not what 
comes of Christianity : it is what comes in spite 
of it. The errors that you see result, not from 
Christianity, but from a deficiency of it. The man 
has it, but not enough. It is not sufficient to say 
that he is a sinner after he professes to have be- 
come a Christian. You must show that, without 
it, he would have sinned no more. Until you 
know what religion has done for him, as well as 
what it has left undone, you are not a competent 
judge. And may it not be suspected that the 
extreme alacrity with which you discover and ex- 
hibit his errors is not owing solely to your hatred 
of shams and your love of sincerity and truth, but 
in great measure to a strong, though perhaps un- 
conscious, desire to justify the position which you 
yourself have adopted, and which your conscience 
continually warns you is an unsafe and untenable 
one ? 




II. 



THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 




UT however wrong the World may be 
in the positions which it assumes, the 
Church is verily guilty concerning her 
brother. By her folly and her wick- 
edness she places stumbling-blocks in the way of 
the World. By setting great value on incidentals, 
and small value on essentials, she confounds moral 
distinctions, and offends Christ's little ones. She 
too often exalts forms and neglects principles. She 
adheres to the letter, and disregards the spirit. - 

For instance, going to church and to church- 
meetings, maintaining family worship, leading in 
social prayer, reading the Bible, committing it to 
memory, warning the impenitent, and endeavoring 
to lead them to the truth, are undoubtedly right 
things to do ; but they are not proofs of Chris- 
tianity in the soul, — only indications. They are 
the incidents, not the essentials of religion. We 
know that there are conceivable circumstances in 
1* 



10 THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 

which a man can be an eminent Christian without 
going to church ; but no circumstances can arise 
whicii shall render Christianity consistent with dis- 
honesty. A cripple may be a saint, but a thief 
never. 

The incidental is not objectionable. It is good 
for just what it is. Tithes of mint, anise, and 
cumin are due, and should be paid promptly, 
fully, and cheerfully ; but these being done, there 
are other things which ought not to be left un- 
done, — nay, there may be other things which 
should have been done first. 

The letter is excellent where it belongs. It is 
a guide through a wilderness, the director, but not 
the source of strength. It is a watchword in 
battle, convenient, generally the sign of a friend, 
but not infallible. It is a body for the soul, a fit 
residence for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; 
but when, instead of acting in the capacity of 
servant to the spirit, it gets the upper hand, — 
when, instead of being informed with the spirit's 
glow, it strikes in, till letter and spirit congeal 
together in one frozen mass, — then, indeed, the 
letter killeth. 

Not long ago I read an anecdote, in which a 
certain faulty Mr. A. was rebuked. He was 
granted to be upright, benevolent, charitable, pa- 
tient, — in fact, he seemed to be endowed with 
nearly all the Christian virtues, while the sole per 
contra was, that he never talked to people about 



THE FITNESS OF THINGS. H 

personal religion, never conversed vt^ith them upon 
their own salvation. If this were an isolated case, 
it would not be worth while to animadvert upon 
it ; but the same disposition is so often manifested, 
the same tendency to regard a constitutional qual- 
ity as a fatal sin or a cardinal virtue, that it is 
worthy of a moment's attention. 

First, the man who has professed Christ before 
men, and who subsequently leads an upright, 
pure, and blameless life, is daily and hourly and 
momently preaching Christ and him crucified 
with a silent power, with a persistent working 
force, which there is no agency in earth or hell 
strong enough to withstand. And, furthermore, 
if all Christians would lead such lives, it would 
almost seem that not one word would need to be 
spoken for Christ, — that the glory of God would 
be so revealed in his Church, that men would flock 
to it as clouds, and as doves to their window, — 
that this city set on a hill would be seen to be 
a city of refuge, whereunto the weary and the 
heavy-laden would flee, and find eternal rest. 

" Pure religion and undefiled before God and 
the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and the 
widow in their affliction, and to keep himself un- 
spotted from the world." Can anything be more 
explicit? And if one professing to be Christ's 
disciple fulfils *\ese conditions, who shall dare 
preach any other Gospel or set up any other 
standard ? 



12 THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 

Secondly, religion develops, but does not create 
faculties. If a sinner is a confirmed tailor, he 
will not turn poet when he becomes a saint. He 
may become a better tailor, but he will be a tailor 
still. If he is a shoemaker by nature, he will not 
be a sculptor by grace. If he has been witty , 
he will not suddenly discover a capacity for dul 
ness ; and if he has been stupid, he will not imme 
diately astonish you with his brilliancy. If he 
was a sociable man before his conversion, he will 
be sociable after it ; and if he was reserved be- 
fore, reserved he will continue. There may be 
exceptions, but this is the rule. It follows, then, 
that the man who is most fluent and ready in 
exhortation and prayer is not necessarily the man 
who lives nearest to God. He may be, but we 
cannot from such facts alone infer that he is. 
I once heard of a woman whose Lares and Pe- 
nates were disorder and uncleanhness ; whose 
husband and children were squalid and repul- 
sive from sheer neglect ; but who descanted with 
unctuous fervor on religious topics, and when 
asked by a modest and admiring matron how 
it was that she could do this, " It 's grace," she 
replied, complacently, — " it 's grace that enables 
me to do it." One can but think that, if it were 
grace, it was a great pity that grace had not taken 
another turn, and set her to mending her family's 
clothes, and making their home decent. In my 
opinion, however, it was not grace, but some- 



THE FITNESS 01 THINGS. 13 

thing quite different. Of course I do not mean 
to say that a clean floor in your own house is 
of more importance than a soul saved in your 
neighbor's ; but Christ, whether his favor is sought 
for yourself or others, is always to be sought in 
the way of duty, never out of it ; and as it is a 
wife's unquestionable duty to attend to the affairs 
of her household, she cannot systematically neglect 
that duty without incurring grave suspicions as to 
her Christian character. 

This is not said in any captious spirit towards 
those who have the gift of tongues. They may 
be the very best Christians in the Church. Their 
power may have received an additional impulse 
from religion. Its owner may have cultivated it 
all the more assiduously for Christ's sake ; and if 
so, he has done well, and he shall not lose his re- 
ward. I only wish that effects shall be attributed 
to their proper causes, that the gifts of nature and 
the gifts of grace shall not be confounded. Nor 
will this involve any derogation from the latter. 
Nature is just as truly from God as grace. Grace 
and nature work harmoniously together, if we can 
but ward off prurient fingers. Nature furnishes 
the foundation, and grace rears the superstructure. 
This is the point I aim particularly to impress, — 
that when religion permeates the soul, it elevates, 
refines, strengthens, and sharpens the powers we 
possess, and not the powers we do not possess ; 
that some are naturally orators, and that others 



14 THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 

are not ; that while some can preach the truth 
with their hps, others can preach it only with 
their lives ; that this distinction is not superfi- 
cial, but has its basis deep down in the human 
heart ; that a recognition of it will facilitate the 
working of the Divine economy, and that a non- 
recognition of it occasions great friction, waste, 
and trouble. 
I have heard 

" Men whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent 
Would have been held in high esteem with Paul," 

and women whose whole prayerful, loving, beauti- 
ful lives were a constant gospel, lament their own 
inefficiency, and gaze with self-reproachful admi- 
ration upon those who had this gift of tongues. 
Dear friend, there are, it may be, so many kinds 
of voices in the world, and none of them is with- 
out signification. The fair temple that crowns 
the summit of Mount Moriah went up without 
sound of hammer or axe, but the glory of the 
Lord dwelt therein. 

In a great machine there are many wheels and 
pulleys and weights and frames and bands. Some 
move swiftly, some slowly ; some with a ceaseless 
click, some with a heavy thud, some in unbroken 
silence : but all are parts of the same machine ; all 
combine harmoniously to the same end. 

Undue self-reproach on the part of silent toilers 
is not the only or the chief evil resulting from .a 



THS FITNESS OF THINGS, 15 

want of discrimination. By it, the strength of 
the Church is diminished, her working power 
wasted, and the coming of Christ's kingdom de 
layed. 

For example : there is a deficiency of teachers in 
the Sabbath school. An appeal is at once made to 
the Church. The low state of Zion is lamented. 
The activity and zeal of Christians in their worldly 
calling are contrasted with their backwardness in 
the Lord's service. Men and women are urcred to 
press forward, to come up to the help of the Lord 
against the mighty, to stand in the breach, to 
work in the vineyard, — all of which for the time 
means to come into the Sunday school. No stress 
is laid upon qualification. On the contrary, dis- 
qualification does not seem to be taken into the 
account. In fact, nothing but impiety seems to be 
recognized as a disqualification. If a man has the 
love of God in his soul, it is presupposed that he 
can assume and successfully maintain one of the 
most difficult positions in the world ; and if he 
should be reluctant to assume it, it is more than 
hinted that His faith needs inspection. The con- 
sequence is, that some good man, of tender con- 
science, but no great breadth of views, — desirous 
above all things that the world should be reformed 
and renewed, but with a rather vague idea of the 
modus operandi^ — ignorant of the science and in- 
experienced in the art of teaching, but fearful of 
grieving the Holy Spirit and discouraging his min- 



16 THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 

ister, — mistakes the voice of God in his soul for 
the temptings of the Devil, and takes upon himself 
the charge of eight or nine bright-eyed, wide- 
awake, fun-loving boys. He enters upon his duties 
with painstaking devotion. He prepares his lessons 
carefully. He prays over them. He is punctual 
and constant in his attendance ; but, in spite of all 
his efforts, his boys harass his very soul. Some- 
times the spirit of unrest enters into them, and they 
are full of " quips and cranks and wanton wiles." 
Again, they seem to undergo a transformation the 
moment they enter the class, and, from intelligent, 
lively lads, become mute, heavy, stolid lumps. It 
is a pitiable sight. Both sides are to be pitied, 
neither blamed. Human nature is particularly 
strong in boys, and they cannot be interested un- 
less there is something to interest them ; but hu- 
man nature is also strong in teachers, and they can- 
not interest if they have not the power. The boys 
and the man were not meant for class and teacher. 
The two parts do not tally. The wheels move in 
opposite directions, and the works are at a stand- 
still. This is not the way to do thin^. The Jes- 
uits knew better than to squander power thus. 
They recognized the eternal fitness of things. 
They selected the man for the place, and the place 
for the man. Let us do the same. There is no 
good, there is infinite harm, in attempting to put 
all upon a dead level. It is a fact that a man needs 
certain qualifications to be a teacher, just as much 



THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 17 

as lie does to be a doctor or a lawyer. The teacher 
is born, and not made. All the learning of the col- 
leges, all the training of the normal schools, I might 
add, all the piety of the churches, will not supply 
the place of — knack. Without this, one may com- 
mand the respect of men, but he cannot secure the 
attention of boys ; and to be a good teacher, a man 
must not only secure the attention of his scholars, 
he must possess himself of them body and soul. 

True, the greatest genius is often obscured by 
over-sensitiveness, and belief in one's own inabihty 
is not infallible. Those who have been most suc- 
cessful in a great work have often shrunk from 
entering upon it. That, however, only makes vigi- 
lance the more necessary on the part of those who 
select workers in any department. It does not 
countenance an indiscriminate demand upon all 
for all departments, or for any department. 

True, also, that out of the mouths of babes and 
sucklings God perfects praise, but that is no man- 
ner of reason why we should set up babes and 
sucklings for our preachers and teachers. They 
perfect praise where God has placed them, in the 
nursery ; and many a woman will perfect praise 
in her household, and many a man in his count- 
ing-room, when, if you wrest them from their 
appropriate spheres, and plant them in a lecture- 
room before fifty or five hundred people, or in a 
Sunday school in front of a dozen children, they 
will perfect only platitudes. 



18 THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 

I know that God chooses the weak thIno;s of this 
world to confound the things that are mighty, but 
that is no reason why we should. He knows what 
he is doing. He has a broader horizon than we. 
He sees farther and clearer. Strono- and weak are 
earthly terras. In the apparently feeblest engine 
there are hidden forces, — hidden from us, but pal- 
pable to the eye of Omniscience, and only waiting 
his command to leap into mightiest action. This 
one thing is certain. He never fails. He never 
chooses agents too weak to accomplish his purposes. 
His causes are always proportioned to his designed 
effects. His means are always exactly adapted to 
his ends. That is all one desires the Church to 
do, — as nearly as may be to adapt means to ends. 
But so lono; as we are human, and therefore forced 
to judge from appearances, let us strive to balance 
weight with power. Let us elect the brawniest 
arm to strike down the stubbornest foe, and the 
softest hand to bind up the sorest wound. 

" God moves in a mysterious way, 
His wonders to perform." 

Mysterious to us, but doubtless perfectly logical 
to him. Let us be logical too, and see that our 
premises are correct before we confidently antici- 
pate a conclusion. Trust in God is a nullity, if 
the powder is not dry. 

I know that men and women whose bodily pres- 
ence is weak, and whose speech contemptible, have 



THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 19 

consecrated alike their weakness and their strength 
to God, have taken up the cross in Sabbath school 
and conference-room, and have brought down bless- 
ings on themselves and their neighbors. So your 
little girl comes to you, " Papa, Mamy has made 
you a purse to put your cents in " ; and she holds 
up to your eyes an astonishing specimen of needle- 
work, a bit of brown cambric with sprawling, zig- 
zag white stitches of variable lengths and indepen- 
dent directions, twisted into an indescribable shape, 
but with a palpable hole in the corner where the 
cents are to go in. You take the little sewing- 
machine in your arms, smother her with caresses, 
and say : *' Yes, it is a beautiful purse. Papa must 
kiss every one of the little fino-ers that made it. 
Just see the cents go in. There now, papa will 
put it in this drawer, and when he wants any cents 
he will find them in the little purse that Mamy 
made " ; — and Mamy jumps down and runs away, 
her little heart just as brimful of happiness as if 
she had indeed bestowed upon you the purse of 
Fortunatus. 

Just so, I think God, our Father, in his infinite 
love to us, in his boundless, sympathizing tender- 
ness, receives the work of our hands, according to 
the love which prompted, and not according to the 
skill that wrought. Blessed be his name for ever 
and ever that he does so ; otherwise where should 
we appear ? And if the sole result desired were 
the beneficent effect produced upon specific in- 



'20 THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 

dividuals, perhaps this kind of cross would some- 
times be as effectual as any. But there is a 
work to be done. Growth in grace is not the 
only object of life. A soul's salvation is the salva- 
tion of but one soul, and there are millions. Let 
us economize our forces, — economize, I say, not 
squander or hoard, not cast before swine nor 
hide under a bushel. There are mountains to be 
levelled, ravines to be bridged, valleys to be filled 
up, rivers to be spanned, causeways to be built, 
before the way is prepared for Christ's coming, — 
and we are to do it. Surely it can best be done 
by giving to each man what he can do best. Let 
one have the commissariat, one disburse the funds, 
one collect the revenue, one arrange the work, one 
instruct the ignorant, one wield the spade, one smite 
the anvil ; and when each one thus does with his 
might the real work which his hand has found to 
do, then shall the cry go up consistently, heartily, 
effectually, " Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly." 

Personal conversation on religious topics, or, to 
be more specific, personal appeals to those who do 
not profess to be Christians, is a matter of so much 
importance and so much difficulty, that I may be 
pardoned for following it a little further. I have 
been alrd!&.dy asked, whether I do not think pro- 
fessing Christians are greatly deficient in the mat- 
ter of making " personal appeals," and whether I 
should not regret giving comfort to the Chris- 
tian who goes on from week to week, and from 



THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 21 

month to month, and from year to year, with- 
out once speaking of his own love to Christ, or 
commending his rehgion by word, as well as by 
example, to those around him. 

If common sense were brought to bear on this 
matter, I should answer both questions in the 
affirmative far more unhesitatingly than I am now 
able to do ; but, so far as I have observed, com- 
mon sense is very largely dispensed with. What 
I mean is, that we do not talk about religion as 
we talk about politics, literature, or art. Religious 
conversation, as a great many of us conduct it, is 
formidable, and the wonder to me is, not that so 
many shrink from it, but that so many can be found 
who dare to grasp so unwieldy a weapon. Ob- 
serve a party of us, — sound orthodox people, in a 
bright, cheerful parlor. We are merry, gay, social, 
piquant, lively ; till a " revival " is broached, or 
the state of the Church, or something else of the 
kind, w^hen immediately a change ensues. We 
look steadfastly solemn ; our faces elongate ; our 
voices assume an indescribable tone, — something 
between a sigh and a moan. All vivacity, spright- 
liness, originality, die out. A stranger would take 
Christianity to be a very doleful affair. 

Why should we do so ? Why, becoming re- 
ligious, should we cease to be natural ? Why 
should we walk in a treadmill of set words and 
phrases, — forms which were indeed instinct with 
life to those who originated them, but to us, too 



22 THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 

often, meaningless and cold, — the dead husk with- 
out the kernel ? Let us adopt a more excellent 
way ; let us talk of religion as we talk of other 
things, — naturally, heartily, vigorously, — saying 
what we mean in our own tongue wherein we 
were born. Let us not set up a bugbear, and then 
blame timid people for being scared. 

You have seen little children play at being 
grown up. You know what demure airs they put 
on ; nothing can equal the sobriety, the gravity, 
the unmitigated sternness, the unbending severity, 
of their deportment. We laugh, not because they 
are such clever imitations, but such charmingly 
ridiculous caricatures, of ourselves. Just so, it 
seems, the angels must have many a laugh at our 
expense ; for, ceasing to be human, we do not be- 
come angelic, any more than the little ones become 
men and women when they cease to be children. 
Putting off the natural, we do not put on the 
supernatural, but rather a nondescript gannent 
suited neither to heaven nor earth, — a decided 
and measured mournfulness, that would be ridicu- 
lous if it were not harmful. It was all very well 
for the mornino; stars to sing together, and all the 
sons of God to shout for joy ; but you find no 
such irregular proceeding among New England 
Puritan Pilgrim-Father Orthodox Christians. 

I suppose we shall all be considerably surprised, 
when we get to heaven, at finding things there 
different from what we expected ; but it seems to 



THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 23 

me that some will be a good deal more surprised 
than others. 

We ought at all times, but especially when we 
are conversing on religious topics, to banish the 
cast-iron, daguerrotype look from our faces. We 
sometimes fancy that, because God looks at the 
heart, he does not look at anything else. We have 
positive proof that he does. The question to Cain 
was not only, " Why art thou wroth ? " but, " Why 
is thy countenance fallen ? " A proud look is an 
abomination to the Lord, as well as a lying tongue. 
Moreover, the heart not only gives expression to 
the face, but the expression of the face reacts on 
the heart. Try to scold with a smile on your 
lips, or kiss your baby with a frown on your 
brow, and you will be convinced. It is almost 
impossible to feel cross while you are looking 
pleasant, or disconsolate while you are looking 
cheerful. So with the voice ; let it be natural, 
soft, not pitched on a high key, nor whining, nor 
melancholy. There is nothing in the Bible which 
requires Christians to be sad. The religion of 
Jesus wears no sombre hue. On the contrary, 
the Scriptures continually teach us, by precepts 
and examples, to rejoice evermore, to joy in God 
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Who, indeed, 
shall be happy, if not those who have placed 
all their hope and their faith, all their present 
and all their future, in the hands of Omnipotent 
Love? 



24 THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 

There "will of course be occasions when the ut- 
most solemnity of voice and look is alone fitting. 
I deprecate the flippancy and thoughtlessness with 
which the most terrible denunciations of the New 
Testament are sometimes uttered, as much as I do 
the lugubrious cadences with which its sweetest 
and tenderest promises are pronounced. What is 
objectionable is the one aspect put on for all occa- 
sions, whether warning the careless, or directing 
the inquiring, or comforting the desponding, or 
instructing the ignorant, or congratulating each 
other on the wonderful works of God. What is 
desirable is, that the tone and manner and expres- 
sion shall be dictated by the love or faith or fear 
or hope or sorrow of the heart, and not by an out- 
side conventionality. 

Another suggestion is, that we should not draw 
so exact a boundary line between religious and 
secular topics. We fence off" our Christianity, 
and deem it meet to drape ourselves in ghostly 
garb when we enter the sacred enclosure. Of 
course, young Christians, and old Christians too, 
judge that there must be something very grand 
and awful to demand all this pomp and circum- 
stance, and they exceedingly fear and quake. It 
is not so. Religion is not a thing that must be 
veiled from vulgar gaze, and watched and guarded 
lest it be profaned. It is itself a purifier, conse- 
crating everything that is brought into contact 
with it. It is not a garment to be worn carefully 



THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 25 

lest it be soon destroyed. Rather is it the living 
skin, constantly renewed, growing with the growth 
of bone and muscle and nerve. It is not a tank 
whose waters must be economized lest the supply 
fail, but a fountain springing the purer from being 
drawn for all humble, daily uses. It is no electri- 
fied manikin, shrivelling at a touch into insensate 
shapelessness. It is itself the very electric prin- 
ciple that vitalizes and animates all. It is a vigor- 
ous, hardy growth, not a frail house-plant ; there- 
fore bring it out into the air. From shade ant! 
shine, from storm and rain, from dew and frost, 
it will only gather strength. Let the winds rock 
it ; it will strike its roots deeper into the earth. 
Let the sun beat upon it ; it will only robe itself 
in denser green, and bourgeon in gayer hues. Time 
can but toughen its fibres, broaden its branches, 
circle its sturdy trunk with signal rings, till the 
tender shoot is become a worshipful oak, and sing- 
ing birds lodge in the branches thereof, and men 
sit under its shadow with great delight. 
Therefore use your religion. Use it 

" without stint or spare, 
As men use common things, with more behind ; 
And in this ever should be more behind." 

Strive to get acquainted with God. Be rever- 
ently familiar with him. Do not confine your 
knowledge of him to his aspect as God the 
Judge, or God the Saviour, though that may be 
the grandest of all, and may receive your highest 



26 THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 

adoration and your warmest love. Study his 
ways in the continuous revelation of his works, 
as well as in the crystallized revelation of his 
word. See God the artist, in the sunsets that 
gild the evening sky ; God the machinist, in the 
mechanism of your own body ; God the benefactor, 
in the wonderful laws of ice ; God the chemist, in 
the laboratories of earth and air ; God the histo- 
rian, in the record of the rocks ; God the builder, 
in the mountains which he has piled up to heaven. 
See God, too, in the thousand little happinesses 
that cluster about your daily life. It is God who 
makes the outgoing of your morning and your 
evening to rejoice, just as truly as it is God who 
spake the world into being. It is God who folds 
you in happy sleep at night, just as much as it is 
God who sent his Son to die for you. God speaks 
to you in the song that trembles into your heart 
from the lips you love, just as truly as he speaks 
to you in the voice of his thunders. Warning the 
impenitent is our chief idea of religious conversa- 
tion, whereas it is only one topic in a worldful. 
Let it have its due place, and it will be less 
drSaded. Let us talk to our little ones of God 
just as we talk to them of their father. Let 
Christ-love and mother-love grow up together in 
their hearts. Learn to think God. Be full of 
God ; and out of the abundance of the heart the 
mouth will speak. One reason why we find it 
so hard to talk of God is that we live so far from 



THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 27 

him. We worship him, but it is a great way off; 
and he would be nigh, even at our own doors. 
He is there. Recognize him. Not only before 
the ffate of the sinner does Christ stand waiting;. 
It is at your door, O my brother, that he knocks. 
Open it and let him in. Take him to your 
heart. Believe in him. Crown him King there, 
at the centre of your life, and all the outposts 
are his. 

There will always, probably, be more or less re- 
luctance, hesitation, diffidence, in conversing about 
matters which pertain to the inner life. Facts are 
easily discussed, but feelings are evasive. Many 
a man can ^ive you a full, clear, and accurate 
account of the state of his business, who, if set to 
work to develop the state of his mind and heart, 
will stammer, repeat, blunder, and finally fail alto- 
gether of his end. You have, I dare say, often 
heard of people who " could talk about anything 
but religion," or about religion in -its external and 
organic aspects, such as churches, benevolent soci- 
eties, councils, etc., but as soon as you began to 
speak of experimental religion, their mouths were 
shut ; and this fact is generally stated in a manner 
that implies reproof, — implies that the reason w^hy 
they say nothing is because they have nothing to 
say. It is a subject upon which they have no 
thoughts and in which they feel no interest. 

This may be true. Undoubtedly it often is 
true ; but let us hope and believe that it is not 



28 THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 

always so. There are whlted sepulchres, fair in 
outward seeming, — within, full of dead' men's 
bones and all uncleanness ; but there are also no- 
ble houses, reared by wealth and art, beautiful 
without, but more beautiful within for the love and 
faith and trust, the thousand household virtues, 
the manifold nameless tendernesses, that make 
of every hearth an altar, of every home a heaven. 
There are mirages which reveal to the eye of the 
thirsty traveller the sparkle of waters that he shall 
never reach, — the greenness of trees under whose 
shade his weary limbs shall never rest ; but there 
are also oases where the stately palm yields her 
fatness, and living springs gush forth healing and 
strength. 

So there may be men in the Church, but not of 
it, who adhere to the organization, obey its laws, 
contribute to its support, frequent its sanctuaries, 
and call its members brethren, who yet can never 
speak of the love of God, because, deceiving or 
deceived, their dry, dead bones have never been 
vitalized by that love ; but may there not also be 
men, just as exemplary in conduct, just as chary 
of words, who ha^e in their secret souls that well 
of water which shall spring up into everlasting 
life? 

For religion is of the spirit. True, it spreads 
its broad and fruitful branches over the whole hfe ; 
but its roots go deep down into the heart, there, in 
silence and darkness, unheard, unseen, to suck in 



THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 29 

the vital juices which are to supply its nourishment 
and further its growth. It may develop itself in 
churches and charities and exhortations and pray- 
ers, hut its spring is in the heart. There it works 
in loving tenderness, in sweet repentance, in saint- 
ly sorrow, in heaven-born aspirations, — and a 
stranger intermeddleth not with its joy. 

Is it not so ? Can it not be so ? Must silence 
always indicate vacuity ? How do we judge in 
other cases ? When a man loves a woman with a 
love that conquers life, does he tell her of it in well- 
turned periods ? Is he ready and fluent whenever 
occasion offers or does not offer ? Does he not 
rather deal in broken sentences and delicious si- 
lences ? Do you not even go so far as to suspect 
the love that harangues in elegant metaphors, with 
faultless rhetoric, — that always has the right word 
in the right place ? And if lips are sometimes 
sealed when a human love is strong, can you not 
believe, and, since it is your brother whom you are 
judging, will you not believe, that Christ-love may 
also consist therewith, — that the silence may come 
solely from the reluctance of the heart to discover 
its own secret workings ? This may be only one 
of many causes that contribute to the same result ; 
but if it is one, it ought not to be left out of the 
account. 

Since this sensitiveness is a natural quality, we 
cannot destroy it if we would, and we would not if 
we could. It may hinder and sometimes prevent 



80 THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 

free communion, but it has its work to do. It is, 
therefore, to be managed, not defied, or overborne. 
It follows that real interchange of feelincr on relior- 
ious topics obeys the same laws that interchange of 
feeling on other topics does. In its outward mani- 
festations, in its practical and wise benevolences, 
the Church can band together. In all social and 
kindly offices, its members should prove to them- 
selves and show to the world; how Christians love 
one another. They are baptized into one name, 
moved by a common love, bound by a common 
vow. They should be real " brothers in unity." 
But further than this they are not required to 
go. Friendship, confidential outpourings, the ex- 
osmose and endosmose of souls, is a matter of 
magnetism, not of morals or religion. Respect is 
awarded to worth ; excellence wins esteem ; but 

" Our likings and dislikings 
Have their own instinctive laws." 

Church-members, like others, will group them- 
selves unconsciously, according to hidden organism. 
Money or learning or " high birth " does not decide 
it, but internal construction. One man is indif- 
ferent to circumstances, and can unbosom himself 
without regard to time or place. Another must 
enter into his closet and shut the door. That 
closet may indeed be the solitude of his own study, 
or the circle of his chosen friends, or the place 
wdiere heavy-laden souls cry out for w^eariness, or 
Christian hands, prayer-burdened, lay hold on God; 



THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 31 

but wherever it is, it must be in the atmosphere 
where alone his soul can live, and move, and have 
its being. It is useless to demand or expect oth- 
erwise, and he who does so knows little of human 
nature. 

.Therefore, if a brother is silent when you would 
fain have" him moved to speech, think it not always 
because he is not a Christian, but sometimes simply 
because he is not you. You choose your own 
time and place. Grant him the same liberty. 

This sensitiveness works in two ways. It not 
only restricts Christian intercourse, but it renders 
necessary the utmost watchfulness in dealing with 
those who are not Christians. Here, alas ! we 
often fail. We are not delicate and wise in our 
modes of operation. It does not hurt a drum to be 
beaten, but a harp gives up its soul of sweetness to 
the touch of dimpled fingers. Some hearts are all 
out-doors, and some are a labyrinth in which, un- 
less you get a clew-thread, you may grope forever 
without discovering the secret chamber where the 
Presence sits enthroned. Therefore be wary, be 
vigilant, be wise. Feel your way.* Do not fire 
your shots at random. Your object is not — ought 
not to be — to discharge or exhibit your revolver, 
or to show that you can pull a trigger. It is to do 
execution, — to brino; down the foe that is leadino; a 
soul captive. Take aim before you shoot ; other- 
wise your charge may go crashing in ainong heart- 
strings, and still their quivering forever. 



32 THE FITNESS OF THINGS, 

" Be Instant in season and out of season," is an 
injunction that has been sadly misunderstood and 
misapplied. There are good people — the Lord 
reward their unselfish seeking, and not visit their 
blunders upon the heads of their victims ! — who 
fancy it to mean that " personal appeals " are .al- 
ways in order. I knew a woman, bearing now, I 
doubt not, a new name among the angels, who, 
feeling it her duty to admonish her neighbors of 
theirs, and not being endowed with a nice sense of 
the fitness of things, used to startle her friends by 
the most unexpected forays. If, at a social gath- 
ering, she saw a person in whose salvation she was 
interested, the presence of one, two, or a dozen 
others was no obstacle to exhortation. *' Dear 
Mr. A., wonH you seek religion ? Promise me that 
you will seek religion." I have heard a person, 
whose own heart was full of love to the Saviour, 
ask a young lady sitting next him, at a dinner-par- 
ty, if she did not find great consolation in the doc- 
trine of the resurrection of the body. It is unne- 
cessary to multiply instances. All the way along, 
we more or less waste our strength by smiting 
when the iron is cold. Yet we might learn a bet- 
ter lesson every day. The children of this world 
are wiser in their generation than the childreh of 
light ; and the children of light are often wiser 
about everything else than about the light itself. 
When your little three-year old trips, night- 
gowned and barefooted, into your room in the 



THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 33 

morning, and climbs up into your bed, and begins 
forthwith to plan and execute surprising excursions, 
planting his heel upon your throat, and his fist on 
your nose, plumping himself down at irregular in- 
tervals, entirely oblivious of paternal sensations, 
you hardly undertake then to imbue his mind with 
quiet, loving, religious thoughts. His little soul, 
fresh from long, dreamless sleep, is wide awake. 
Every nerve and fibre of his body is quivering with 
life, and harnessed for action. So, if you are sen- 
sible, you tumble him over, and roll him about, 
and punch him, and knead him, and tickle him, 
till he screams with delio;hted lauo-hter. But when 
he has danced away the summer day, and goes to 
his mother, tired, happy, and subdued, she takes 
liim in her arms, and tells him 

" That sweet story of old, 
Kow Jesus appeared among men," 

and with the music of divine love murmured Into 
his ear from lips that are only not divine, the blue 
eyes film, the silken lashes droop, and the child- 
soul wanders off into the land of sleep ; but the 
human and divine, woven together in his heart 
forevermore shall, through all the years that are to 
come, preserve his eyes from tears, his feet from 
falling, and his soul from death. 

If you do not learn it from your course towards 
your child, you may learn it from his towards you ; 
and I often think that children have a certain 

2* C 



34 THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 

fresh, instinctive knowledo;e of human nature that 
after years incrust and destroy. When you are 
waiting in your half-warmed breakfast-room, impa- 
tient of delay, and anxious to be gone to your of- 
fice, your boy amuses himself as best he can ; it is 
when you sit by your evening fire in dressing-gown 
and slippers, in happy quietude, that he wriggles 
up your knee, sits astride your lap, and says confi- 
dently, '^ N'ow, papa, tell me a story." 

All the way from infancy to old age, if we wish 
to make an impression on hearts, we must take 
hearts when they are open to impression. I do not 
attempt to give, and I do not think there is, any 
specific rule. Every man is constructed upon a 
different basis, and must work and be worked after 
his kind. Some it may be well to meet breast- 
wise, with full front, breaking in upon their ab- 
sorbing business, or pleasure, or madness, with a 
" Thus saith the Lord." Others will be moved by 
a loving word, a tender inquiry, a gentle sugges- 
tion, as you walk home with them on a summer 
evening. You must be the judge of where and 
how, but judge. Do not follow a blind impression 
that you are to make home-thrusts right and left, 
without regard to time or place. Do not fancy, 
as an excellent woman whom I knew seemed to do, 
that your social, religious duty is discharged when 
you have put to every person you meet the ques- 
tion, " How do you feel in your mind " ? The 
human heart remains ever an unsolved and in- 



THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 35 

solvable problem. Only by careful study and un- 
ceasing prayer — self-work and God-help — can 
you begin to take its measurement. The cure 
of souls is no trifling matter, to be entered upon 
as impulse may direct. The bow drawn at a 
venture may send an arrow quivering in between 
the joints of the armor, felling a foe to earth ; but 
also it may drain the life-blood of a friend. Your 
random "appeal" may be the savor of life unto 
life ; but unless you have made it judiciously, 
you have no right to expect it to be anything 
but of death unto death. Of course I do not 
mean anything so absurd as that you must never 
speak to a friend on matters that pertain to per- 
sonal religion, unless you have carefully weighed 
beforehand all the circumstances, and deliber- 
ately chosen to do it thus and so. I would have 
you, rather, like the skilful general, who, indeed, 
plans his campaign beforehand with painful care, 
but is guided in carry^ing out its details by the 
movements of the enemy, marching and counter- 
marching, as best he may baffle his wary foe. 
The unpremeditated onset is often the most bril- 
liant and successful ; but its very brilliancy and 
success are due, in large measure, to the skill 
that watched and the patience that waited. 

Grasp the opportunity. Make one if you can ; 
but be a little careful that it is an opportunity. 
Watch. It will not be long. " God's occasions " 
are constantly " drifting by." 



36 THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 

Do you say that I have put lions in the way ? 
Not at all. They were there before. I have only 
tried to point out one or two, that you may be on 
your guard. It is a fearful thing to live.- We do 
not half enough feel it. We walk lightly among 
eternities. We lie down and rise up, we go out 
and come in, we smile or frown, we utter a brief 
good morning, we look a look of love, we smile a 
smile of hope, we breathe sl word of prayer, we 
pass by on the other side, and a soul plumes its 
wings for heaven, or plunges into the depths, and 
we know it not. 

Who is sufficient for these things ? God. With 
him our weakness is streno-th. Without him our 
strengfli is weakness. We are instruments in his 
hands. It is for him to use us. It is for us to lend 
ourselves to his uses, — joyfully, jubilantly, entirely, 
with infinite blessing to ourselves, or reluctantly, 
grudgingly, lazily, to our final and infinite dismay. 

It is far more trouble to think and plan and 
contrive how best we may serve God, by most 
wisely directing lost and wandering souls back to 
him, than it is to push thoughtlessly forward with- 
out reflection, or investigation, or ever going below 
the surface of things. But what else are you liv- 
ing for ? What would your farm and your mer- 
chandise avail you, if your only son, the heir of 
your name and fame and fortune, were doomed 
to hopeless captivity ? What shall it profit a man 
if he gain the whole world and let slip his brother's 



THE FITNESS OF THINGS, 37 

soul ? For if a man love not his brother whom he 
hath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath 
not seen ? And what lazy love is this that will 
throw out a rope to his sinking brother, but will 
not take the trouble to see whether it be long 
enough to reach him, or strong enough to bear 
him? 

By using a little tact in the " cure of souls," our 
work becomes not only more agreeable, but more 
pleasant. If you talk to a man at a fitting time 
and in a natural. way, not with routine and for- 
mality, not simply from a cold sense of duty, not 
with a desire to proselyte him, nor pharisaically, — 
but out of the depths of a loving heart, yearning 
over the spirits that are in prison, longing to loose 
the bands of the oppressor, and to guide the wan- 
derer to Christ, — in ninety-nine cases out of a 
hundred, you will, I believe, meet not only courte- 
sy and kindness, but the sincerest gratitude. This, 
indeed, is not essential, but it is pleasant. Duty 
ought to be followed up to the mouth of the cannon 
that has powder and a chain-shot inside, and a 
fusee scattering sparks outside ; but it is neither 
religion nor morality nor courage to go there 
from sheer love of the heads, trunks, and limbs 
out of which glory is inferred by the historian. A 
duty is not to be shirked because it is disagreeable : 
but if it can be made agreeable, by all means make 
it so. It is a fine thing to be persecuted for right- 
eousness' sake. It strengthens and touo;hens and 



38 THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 

develops tlie soul. We reverence the heroism that 
would be sawn asunder, slain with the sword, wan- 
der about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, in deserts 
and mountains and dens and in caves of the earth, 
yet, strong in faith, would not deny the Lord. But 
we have very little of that kind of persecution ; 
ouj-s comes in a mild form, and we rather en- 
joy it. In fact, except among sound orthodox 
Christians, there is not much persecution in these 
latter times. We like to flatter ourselves that 
there is. We like to fancy ourselves bearing a 
cross, because it enables us to claim the crown. 
Young people, who have just begun to think upon 
then: ways and to turn their feet to the testimo- 
nies of the Lord, read of the ci-uel mockings and 
scourgings recorded in the New Testament, and, 
forgetting that they are not living in Rome in the 
days of Nero, exhort each other to courage and 
constancy after the manner of Paul and the early 
Christians. If you bring them to the point, — in- 
sisting that they explain definitely what they mean, 
— they will probably conclude that they refer to 
the scorn, ridicule, contumely, or coldness " of 
the world." Even of this, however, there is 
very little in New England. I dare say a good 
many of my young readers will be considerably 
shocked at hearing it ; but it is true. Religion 
here walks in silver slippers. It is, on the whole, 
appreciably more respectable to be witliin than 
without the pale of the Church. I have been 



THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 39 

amused to hear young men counsel each other at 
prayer-meetings not to fear the jeers of the world, 
when their world was composed of an overwhelm- 
ing majority of at least nominal Christians, — 
when their certificate of church-membership was, 
if not a passport, at least a recommendation to the 
" best society " and the most lucrative clerksliips. 
It would be very strange if it were otherwise. Our 
young people, and our old people too, make the 
mistake of applying to our own state of society 
facts which are true only of other and far different 
ones. Would it not be singular, if the descendants 
of the Puritans had thus early so far cast off the 
faith and practice of their fathers, as that society 
generally should hold in contempt all that they held 
in reverence ? We may have degenerated, but not 
with such rapid strides. We have softened the 
harsher outlines of a stern belief, rendering it, we 
hope, more effective ; but we have as yet by no 
means discarded it, substituting therefor devices 
of our own. Many foreign influences are at 
work, and many foreign elements have been in- 
troduced, — some for good, some for evil ; but the 
basis is unchanged. There may be places — 
cities, towns, villages — where religion is despised, 
but I have never seen them. The great mass 
of intelligent people in our land — which is the 
great mass of the people — treat Christianity 
with outward respect. I can go further, and 
say that I never knew a truly humble, devout, 



40 THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 

sensible, consistent Christian ridiculed on account 
of his Christianity, except in a few rehgious 
newspapers and Sunday-school books. I have 
been surprised to see the respect paid to religion 
by those who made no pretensions to it them- 
selves. 

It is true that inconsistent Christians do get a 
good many hard hits ; and as most of us are more 
or less inconsistent, it follows that most of us have 
to wince occasionally, but we have no right to com- 
plain. It may not be kind or chivalrous in the 
hitter, but, if we present a vulnerable point to the 
foe, we must expect him to take advantage of it. 
We flatter our self-love that we are following the 
footsteps of the martyrs, when we are but stum- 
bling along by-paths of our own. It is not our 
Christianity, but our inconsistency, that is laughed 
at, as it richly deserves, and may consider itself let 
off lightly at that. When our eflbrts for others 
are received with ridicule, ten to one it is because 
we go to work in a ridiculous way. I do not say 
this harshly or reproachfully. It is a simple state- 
ment of fact. Some of us are naturally absurd. 
We take hold of things in general the Avrong way. 
Some of us are only partially absurd. Let us 
acknowledge the fact good-naturedly, and if we 
fail where we earnestly hoped to succeed, let us 
consider whether it may not be due to the out- 
cropping of our absurdity, as well as of another's 
total depravity. When we enter tjie portals of the 



THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 41 

church, we take our bundle of peculiarities with us. 
So far as they are stumbling-blocks in other peo- 
ples' paths, we ought to do all that we can to re- 
move them ; which being done, we are guiltless. 
But do not let us magnify them into religion, and 
think the cause of Christ bound up in them. They 
may be our fault ; they may be our misfortune. 
In either case they are not our glory. 

We confound incident with essence ; and the re- 
sult is harmful. It is wrong, and wrong is always 
harmful. It is unjust, and injustice works woe. 
People are bad enough ; it does not conduce to 
God's glory or their own good to make them out 
any worse than they are. They have a sufficient 
alacrity in sinning ; do not let us call that a sin 
which is only a difference of taste. I once saw a 
pious woman seem as much distressed because her 
brother spoke lightly of the preaching faculty of a 
certain minister, as if he had told a lie ; when the 
fact was, that the minister, although the very salt 
of the earth for goodness, — a burning and shining 
hght for all moral virtues and Christian graces, — 
was an intolerable proser in the pulpit. Famine 
itself could hardly obtain meat off the dry bones 
of his theological disquisitions. Do you not see 
that such a confoundincr of facts must have a ten- 
dency to make a man desperate ? If you visit 
upon mere difference of taste, or an acute sense of 
the ridiculous, the reprobation which belongs only 
to moral obhquity, — if you identify your weak- 



42 THE FITNESS OF THINGS. 

nesses with Christ's strength, and consider a dart 
aimed at one to be also and inevitably aimed at the 
other, — you must not be surprised if he whom you 
wish to serve and save, following your example, 
falls into the same mistake, and the name of Christ 
thereby suffers reproach. 

Be careful, therefore, not to confound men with 
principles, the religion of Christ with your ex- 
emplification of it, the susceptibility of the mind 
to various emotions with the " opposition of the 
natural heart " to truth. Make the cause of Christ 
always yours ; but do not suppose that your cause 
must invariably be the cause of Christ. The shell- 
fish and sea-weed that cling to the ship's keel are 
not the ship. They are only obstacles to its pro- 
gress. The heavy blows, the burning and scraping 
and scouring, are only to clear them off. Nobody 
is going to scuttle the ship. 

In the world ye shall have tribulation, but the 
tribulation of New England Christians in the year 
1860 is from within rather than from without, — 
it arises from our own sins rather than from the 
sins of others. 

Whoever wishes to work effectually for Christ 
must put his armor on. It is no work for lazy 
people. It needs the wisdom of the serpent, the 
harmlessness of the dove, and the strength of the 
lion. Let us watch for souls, as those that must 
give account. 




III. 



ORDINANCES. 



"Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an 
holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days : which are a shadow of 
things to come; but the body is of Christ." — Col. ii. 16, 17. 




)E who are Congregationalists have 
small reverence for the Apostolic 
succession. We can hardly believe 
that virtue has been conducted over 
an unbroken line of fingers eighteen centuries 
long, and we are rather surprised at the credulity 
of our Episcopal brethren. Yet we sometimes 
pay ourselves, and demand from others, as great 
a reverence for certain forms, as if those forms 
had been intrusted to our keeping by the great 
Head of the Church. We are as inconsistent as 
we fancy " Churchmen " to be credulous. They 
logically require reverence for what they believe 
to be a true apostolic succession. We illogically 
demand equal reverence for that for which we 
claim only human origin. 

I suppose the whole Protestant world is a unit 



U ORDINANCES. 

as regards the necessity and propriety of assem- 
bling together on the first day of the week for the 
purpose of worshipping God in a direct and espe- 
cial manner. The teaching of Scripture, both by 
precept and example, and the experience of the 
Christian world, have shown that the social ele- 
ment of man's religious nature needs this for its 
adequate sustenance and generous growth. But 
as to the particular manner in which this worship 
shall be conducted, or the number of times that we 
shall assemble ourselves together on Sunday, the 
Scriptures do not give a distinct intimation, and 
we acknowledge no other authority, — nor is there, 
in fact, any unanimity of custom in the matter. 
Many a New England village has, however, set- 
tled the question as succinctly and definitely as 
if it had consulted Urim and Thummim and re- 
ceived response. Extemporaneous prayers ut- 
tered by the clergyman alone, written sermons, 
and choir-singing, — for quality, two church ser- 
vices and Sunday school in the day-time, and 
prayer-meeting in the evening, — for quantity. 
The question of quality I do not now propose to 
discuss, but let us examine a little this question of 
quantity. 

I have no right to reproach you for going to 
church only once on Sunday, and you have no 
right to reproach me for going four times. By 
your one attendance you express your approbation 
of, and your respect for, the institution, and by the 



ORDINANCES. 45 

four, I express just as much, and no more. You 
uphold the ordinance just as powerfully as I. 
The man who goes to a theatre twice a year ex- 
presses his opinion that the theatre is not a sin 
per se, or confesses that, although a sin, it holds 
out to him a temptation too strong to be resisted, 
just as truly as he who goes to the theatre every 
night. So the man w^ho goes to church once on 
Sunday, lifts up his voice in favor of church-going 
just as loudly as he who goes four times. Thus 
far they stand on the same ground. But the dif- 
ference between them is this. The latter shows 
by his repeated attendance that the kind of food 
which he there receives is best adapted to his soul. 
He can worship God better in the great congre- 
gation than elsewhere. He can, for the time, 
pray better with other men's lips than with his 
own. He can praise better if other men "join 
voices " in his praise. His soul can better grasp a 
truth which has passed through the alembic of 
another man's soul, than ojie that presents itself 
to him at first hand. His social nature is largely 
developed. He craves companionship. His fer- 
vor is not spontaneous, but communicated. His 
heart strikes fire only when smitten by the thought 
or feeling of another heart. His heat is developed 
by friction. All this is natural to him, and right. 
The church and the prayer-meeting are to him the 
house of God and the very gate of heaven. There 
he sees the angels ascending and descending. 



46 ORDINANCES. 

There his faith and hope and love, wakened to 
new hfe, bridge for him the finite and the infinite, 
the present and the future, earth and heaven. 
The communion of saints fills him with holy joy, 
and as his reluctant feet turn lingeringlj away, he 
exclaims with rapture, " How amiable are thy 
tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts ! " 

The former shows with equal clearness that he 
possesses a different organization. Other condi- 
tions are more favorable to his growth in grace. 
The savory meat that his soul loves cannot be 
furnished him by the bow and quiver of Esau, 
even though he be a mighty hunter before the 
Lord. It comes to him in " saintly solitude." 
From between the covers of musty books, the old 
truths, ever fresh and ever young, spring up to 
meet him. Dry leaves exhale for him the sweet- 
est odors. Old-time thoughts, still glowing with 
the piety that conceived them, fragrant with aroma 
caught from the thousands of hearts which they 
visited with healing as.they passed down the ages, 
have for him a charm, a pungency, a power, which 
the words of no living preacher possess. The 
wisdom of the past girds him with wisdom for the 
fature. Among the heroes and martyrs of other 
days he finds his fitting panoply. He puts the 
new wine to his lips, but he feels that the old is 
better. Or it may be that he finds Christ in field 
and grove. He hears the voice of the Lord walk- 
ing in the garden. A bird of the air carries the 



ORDINANCES. 47 

message of love to Mm. The brooks ripple it. 
The winds murmur it. The waves sparkle it. 
" Rock and tree and flowing water " are God's 
messengers to him. Everj harebell that swings 
its purple cup to the summer -breeze, every lily 
that opens its white bosom to the evening dew, 
every blade of grass that wrests a homely but vig- 
orous life from the uncareful soil, are ministers of 
God to him. He finds a gospel in the hum of the 
bees, in the chirr of insects, in the busy, uncon- 
scious happiness that stirs around him. God's 
wisdom, God's providence, God's fatherliness, 
meet him everywhere. Earth and sea and sky 
are to him a harp of a thousand strings. Touched 
by his tuneful hand they quiver into melody, and 
every creature which is in heaven, and on the 
earth, and under the earth, join the song, — the 
voice of a great multitude, the voice of many 
waters, the voice of mighty thmiderings, saying, 
Alleluia ! The Lord God omnipotent reigneth. 
Blessing and honor and glory and power be 
unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto 
the Lamb, forever and ever. 

So far all is right ; but when number one turns 
on number two, or number two turns on number 
one, and begins to rebuke him for his mode of 
spending the Sabbath, all becomes wrong again. 
Every man must decide as to the kind of food his 
soul needs. His liberty is not to be judged of 
another man's conscience. The gay canary-bird 



48 ORDINANCES. 

pecks a dainty breakfast from its little cup of 
seeds, and rings out full-throated thanks on the 
morning air. The meek-eyed oxen crop the pur- 
ple clover, and in its strength patiently bear the 
burden and heat ,of the day. The oxen would 
starve on the canary-seed, and all the clover in 
the world would not supply to the bird the place 
of its one httle cup. 

It is often true, I sorrowfully admit, that many 
people who stop away from church are actuated 
by no right motive. They not only do not wor- 
ship God at church, but they do not worship him 
anywhere. They are simply lazy and indifferent. 
Their idea of rest is lounging. They doze away 
the Sabbath day in profitless, and therefore harm- 
ful idleness. 

But also there are many constant attendants on 
religious services whose course is guided by noth- 
ing higher than habit. They have been brought 
up in a certain way from infancy, and they never 
think of doing otherwise. Others go for excite- 
ment. Some will marvel at this, but when a man 
has been digging potatoes or hoeing corn or 
mending shoes for six days, it is a pleasant change 
for him to put on his best coat and go to meeting 
thrice on Sunday, and he feels as if he can hardly 
get too much of it. Others do it for the sociality 
of the thing. In the country villages, for a con- 
siderable part of the year, it is the principal oppor- 
tunity that friends have of meeting each other, 



ORDINANCES. 49 

exchanging kindly greetings, and displaying the 
fine clothes which their own skill or industry has 
procured. I do not say that these are wrong mo- 
tives. I do not think they are. It is quite inno- 
cent to take pleasure even in wearing a pretty 
bonnet to church ; but it is only innocent. It is 
not virtuous. It is not devout. It is not holy. 
If it is not combined with some higher motive, 
there is a sin of omission, and the act of going to 
church is no more religious than the act of eating 
breakfast. Yet that such cases often occur, does 
in no wise militate against church-going, nor dis- 
prove the fact that there are devout worshippers 
in every sanctuary, — men and women who go 
there to call upon the name of the Lord. Just so 
does the indifference and irreligion found in the 
other class not prove that a man may not, in the 
exercise of an enlightened judgment, absent 
himself from the morning, afternoon, or evening 
service, and yet be a man after God's own 
heart. 

So far, I have only desired to show that staying 
away from a portion of the church services is not 
of itself a sin, and ought not to be considered a 
presumption of irreligion or indifference. 

I now go further, and suggest whether this 
wholesale church-going be not a hinderance to our 
upward progress. Is it not sometimes allowed to 
usurp the place of other duties ? If we went to 
church less, could we not serve God more ? Do 

. 3 D 



50 ORDINANCES. 

we not make a kind of salve for our consciences, 
soothing ourselves for the neglect of other duties 
by the punctual performance of this ? Is it not, 
sometimes, a device of the enemy to take away 
our attention from the real sin that is undermining 
the foundations of our faith ? I would be very far 
from wishing, even had I the power, to strike at 
the root, or at the smallest opening bud, of any tree 
whose leaves are for the healing of the nations ; 
but there may be straggling or withered branches 
that ought to be lopped off, and which no one hand 
is strono; enouo-h to do. It must be the work of 
many, — all feeble, it may be, yet powerful in 
union, and impelled by hearts that would fain gain 
strength for themselves by helping other hearts to 
bear their burdens. So I would speak of such a 
matter with great diffidence, — rather in the form 
of suggestion than of advice. I would not lift up 
a rash, presumptuous hand against anything which 
has contributed to the happiness and received the 
sanction of millions. An old-time custom has al- 
ways in itself somewhat venerable. The simple 
fact that it is a custom, commends it to respect. 
Anything that indicates and moulds character is 
entitled, at least, to serious attention. Even if 
wholly bad, we cannot forget that it emanated 
from, and reacted upon, responsible immortal be- 
ings, and we 

" walk backward with averted gaze, 
And hide its shame." 



ORDINANCES. 51 

If it be good, we recognize and cherish it as a 
mighty engine for truth. If it have outgrown the 
occasion which gave it birth, or if it be, as is very 
common, partly good and partly evil, we lay it 
aside reverently, or strive so to modify it that it 
shall conduce only to highest ends. But we ought 
not to let our reverence so far mislead our judg- 
ment as to refuse to see the evil, or, seeing it, to 
remove it. Nam consuetudo sine veritate vetustas 
errons est, " Custom without truth is the old age 
of error." If it is best for us all to spend the 
greater part of Sunday in public religious services, 
let us all do it. If it is best only for a part, let a 
part only do it. If it is asserted that there is a 
more excellent way, let us, as we love God and 
our brother, examine that way before we decide 
for or against it. Let us prove all things, holding 
fast only that which is good. 

It seems to me that we put Sabbath-keeping 
generally on too low ground. We call it duty 
when it should be privilege. The Sabbath is a 
feast, and not a fast. It is less a command than a 
boon. It is granted to us, above and beyond being 
imposed upon us. It is our great rest-day, given 
us that we, may not faint from overmuch weari- 
ness. After a week's toil of body, or mind, or 
both, God, in his fatherly love and tender care, 
presses upon us this great gift that our souls may 
live. He stays the sweeping tide that we may 
take our soundings, reckon our latitude and Ion- 



52 ORDINANCES. 

gitude, find where we are and wliitlier we are 
steering. In the dizzying whirl of life we need 
— O how greatly do we need, and how sorely 
do we suffer without it ! — this regularly recurring 
interval of quiet, that we may look gratefully back 
over all the way which the Lord our God hath 
led us, and trustfully forward through all the 
future till the end come. 

But often we bafHe these designs. We spend 
our Sunday in what I can call nothing but relig- 
ious dissipation. We scarcely commune with 
ourselves at all. We leave no time for it. We 
live in public. We flit fi^om service to service. 
We listen with more or less attention to one, two, 
three sermons, besides spending an hour or so in 
Sunday schools. We fast during the week, gorg- 
ing ourselves on Smiday. It seems to me nothing 
more or less than a kind of theological cramming. 
The result is, and must inevitably be, a spiritual 
dyspepsia. The food we receive is ill-timed and 
ill-measured, and nourishes a morbid or partial 
growth. It goes but in small proportion to blood 
and bone and sinew, — to strength and symmetry 
and life. ]\Iuch of it is as water spilt upon the 
ground. The waste is immense. So our religion 
lacks a well-proportioned development. It has a 
tendency to go off into all manner of side issues, 
instead of meeting the world, the flesh, 'and the 
devil face to face, and putting them all to fhght. 
It runs to prayer-meetuigs and technicalities rather 



ORDINANCES, 53 

than to riglit living. It is more concerned to keep 
heretics out of the Church than to bring sinners 
into Christ's fold. It sticks on to the outside of 
our life instead of penetrating to the centre, puri- 
fying the heart. We set our religion here, and 
our business there, stirrino; them too^ether a little 
occasionally ; whereas they should chemically 
combine, forming a third substance, which is 
neither the one nor the other, but infinitely bet- 
ter than either, — namely, a Christian life. Paul 
gives the recipe and the result. " Not slothful in 
business. Fervent in spirit." This is " serving 
the Lord." 

The Sabbath is a rest-day, but change is rest. 
We are just as much rested by standing after we 
have been sitting a long while, as we are by 
sitting after we have been standing. It is the 
duty of every man to keep the Sabbath holy, but 
the best way for him to keep it depends somewhat 
on circumstances. Whether a certain course of 
action will give him rest or not, depends upon 
whether it will give him change. He must be the 
judge. Every man must do that which is right 
in his own eyes, subject to the "higher law." If 
his .business during the week is such as occupies 
the body rather than the mind, then it will be not 
only harmless, but beneficial, for him to keep 
his mind at work on Sunday. The Sabbath- 
school and prayer-meeting will give scope to fac- 
ulties that misiht otherwise lano-uish from inaction. 



54 ORDINANCES. 

The well-thouglit (whe-tlier or not well-written) 
sermon will give liim something to take hold of. 
If it is a little knotty, abstruse, or unusual, so 
much the better, provided it be tangible and port- 
able. Behind the plough, on the bench, over the 
anvil, he will strai2;hten the tanMed doctrine and 
clear up the clouded truth. It is the quiet, med- 
itative tenor of his daily life that enables him to 
spend his Sabbath in profitable activity. 

If, on the contrary, his business engrosses all 
his energies, physical and mental, he needs quiet 
on Sunday, — the song of praise to soothe, — — the 
voice of prayer to elevate, — the sermon to direct 
his attention to other matters than his business, or 
to his business from a different and a higher stand- 
point. The home circle, too, the society of wife 
and child, 

" The graces and the loves that make 
The music of the march of life," 

all have their ministry of salvation to him. They 
soften and spirituaHze the heart that would other- 
vvase grow hard from the very anxiety of its 
affection. 

We have, unhappily, yet not without reason, 
contracted a distrust of natural religion, or the 
reliction that God reveals throucrh nature. We 
are afraid of it as if it were some insidious monster, 
that must be strano-led in its innocent-seemino; 
infancy, lest it attack and destroy our Christian 
faith. I have heard yomig people warned against 



ORDINANCES. 55 

it as a kind of hidden heresy and infidBlity ; 
whereas, it seems to me that natural religion is 
just as good as revealed religion, as far as it goes. 
It does not, to be sure, go a long way. We 
have something which goes a great deal farther. 
Yet many nations in many ages have had nothing 
else. It is not absolutely necessary to our sal- 
vation, because we have a more sure word of 
prophecy. Yet it is a help whereunto we shall 
do well to take heed. It would be very wicked 
and very weak — a crime and a blunder — for us 
to turn away from the revelation of the Bible, 
which is definite and explicit, to the revelation 
of nature, which is in a degree vague and indis- 
tinct ; but it is not only wise — it is the highest 
wisdom — to take the two together, to bring each 
to the interpretation of the other. It would be ex- 
tremely stupid for a man to go down cellar to live 
because he had bought a pound of tallow candles. 
It would also be somewhat stupid for him to re- 
fuse ever to light his candles, because God has 
furnished a sun. The only sensible way is to 
take in with utmost grasp the rich, full, all-per- 
vading sunshine, but, if thereby the ends of 
charity and cheer can be better promoted, not 
to despise the farthing candle at evening hour. 

Natural religion is not Pantheism, — at least, 
not the Pantheism that abrogates God, — not the 
Pantheism that makes the creature coequal and 
coextensive with the Creator, — that confounds 



56 ORDINANCES. 

the work and the worker. There is a true Pan- 
theism, — to see God in all. That which would 
fain have us take the vessel for Him that made it, 
is a false Pantheism, if, indeed, it he not Atheism. 
The blind and base confusion of the one is as far 
removed from the enlightened adoration of the 
other, as darkness is from light. The one is a 
positive truth ; the other, a negative falsehood. 
But because we reject the falsehood, we need not 
reject the truth. We are not to worship Nature, 
since she is only God's handiwork ; but we ought 
to revere her because she is his handiwork. 
What God thought it worth his while to make, 
it is certainly worth our while to examine. We 
are losers if we do not. The Land and the Book 
complement each other. The light of the Bible 
thrown full upon the face of Nature brings out a 
hidden loveliness that her priests and prophets, 
groping without it, never saw; and when earth 
and sea and sky shall have given up the secrets 
w^hich are in them, the holy words that are now 
but a faint nebula of light will shine out fiill, 
distinct, and clear, each 

" A spotless star, a fixed, central sun 
In the mind's heaven, unchangeable and one." 

Yet we, learned and unlearned, are very heathen 
in this matter. On the one side, we too often put 
science in the place of God. We attribute events 
to causes, forgetting the great First Cause. We 
go back one step, and stand exulting in our knowl- 



ORDINANCES. 57 

edge, as if we had gone back to that dlvlnel;r 
simple, yet inconceivable and fearfal "in the 
beginning." An apple falls, and we call it grav- 
itation, and glory in the grand discovery, and 
plume ourselves on our acuteness and our wisdom. 
— -as if we knew anything about gravitation, except 
that it is. One puny little star in the grand and 
awful universe, we sweep around in our appointed 
cycle. Infinite mysteries are about us and beneath 
us, in which we have neither hand nor voice. No 
influence of ours can hasten or retard, or in any 
way disturb, the earth in her swift career. Im- 
pelled by an unseen force, guided by inexorable 
law, she wheels through the circling heavens. 
We sit perched on her surface for a few days, 
turning our little glasses upon the worlds that go 
flashing by, — shrinking now and then with sud- 
den fear, as some unknown messenger seems to 
threaten destruction to our frail chariot. We 
delve a few feet down among the granite records, 
striving with dim eyes and feeble hands to wresf 
their secrets from the rocks. Painfully and labori- 
ously, generation after generation, shred by shred, 
we gather a few facts, and then a " giant intel- 
lect " arises, and compels admiration by the an- 
nouncement of some ''great law," which is only 
the general statement of assorted facts. So in 
the lapse of ages we discover here and there 
gleams of the vast system by which God gov- 
erns the universe. We play at hide and seek 

3* 



58 ORDINANCES. 

with the truths of space and time. Right, if 
we do it right, — and productive only of good. 
Wrong, if we do it wrong, — and conducive only 
to evil. 

It needs not to wage war with science. That 
would be the blindest, and, fortunately, the most 
useless stupidity. Science is the handmaid of re- 
ligion. Every step we take in the knowledge of 
mind or matter brings us intellectually, and should 
bring us morally, nearer to God. Our very mis- 
takes are fruitful of good, since every error ex- 
posed diminishes, by so much, our distance from 
the truth. There is, there can be, no contradiction 
between the truths of science and the truths of 
the Bible, for truth is always at one vrith itself. 
What contradiction exists, lies between seeming 
truths, or our conceptions of them. As we in- 
crease in wisdom, all discrepancies will disappear. 
True theology and true geology will dovetail into 
each other. If it could be otherwise, — if the 
Bible needed to be shielded from the light of 
advancing knowledge, lest its own light should be 
quenched or dimmed, it would be no Bible at all. 
A revelation that needs to be propped up is a 
sorry kind of revelation. If, when science is 
rounded to completion, it shall contradict the 
Bible, let the Bible go. We do not want it. It 
will have done its work. Let it be gathered to 
the Korans, and the Eddas, and the Shasters. 
But it will not ! Science and theology are both 



ORDINANCES. 59 

in tlieir Infancy. They have not yet put off their 
swaddhng-clothes. We only look through a glass 
darkly. When- the full glory is revealed, we 
shall see how, along the world's dark ages not yet 
closed, both have been working together for good. 
Meanwhile, let us be modest. Let us be reverent. 
Let us remember that a law is only God's mode 
of action. Science is recreant to her trust if she 
makes us satisfied with anything short of God. 
Better that we should look upon the fearful sights 
and great signs in the heavens,- — upon plague 
and pestilence and famine as the direct scourges 
of God, than that we -should say "gravitation," 
" electricity," " malaria," and put God out of all 
our thoughts. All that we can do as regards 
other worlds, and the most we can do in this, is 
to discover what is. We say the planets revolve 
round the sun, and the sun around Its sun. Ni- 
trogen destroys life, and oxygen destroys life, but 
nitrogen and oxygen together support life. We 
can neither explain nor alter the facts. We can- 
not add one cubit to our stature, nor make one 
hair of our heads white or black. How worse than 
useless, then, for us to attempt to divorce science 
and religion. How thousand-fold orphaned should 
we be, if we could cut loose from God. How 
senseless is it for us to construct our little theories 
from our fragmentary facts, — houses of straw, 
which a breath from the next generation may 
blow away, — and then stand off and exclaim, " Is 



60 ORDINANCES. 

not this great Babylon that I have built ? " O 
fools and slow of heart ! He that sitteth in the 
heavens shall laugh ! The Lord shall have us 
in derision. 

But, on the other side, who is it that is working 
this divorce of science and religion ? Not the 
"undevout astronomer," not the philosopher, who, 
in the strength of his mighty intellect, refuses 
to believe in the need or the fact of revelation, 
and scouts the idea of a miracle. To be sure, 
he does what he can. He harnesses himself to 
Satan's chariot, and drags with all his might and 
main ; but the Lord has . taken off the wheels, 
and it would be very up-hill work, if you. Chris- 
tian brother, did not stand close in the rear and 
push. One sinner destroys much good, but not 
so much as the conscientious, narrow-minded, 
bigoted Christian destroys. It is you w^ho do the 
mischief, — you, who refuse to recognize anything 
as religious or devout or Christian unless it is 
measured off by your yard-stick ; you, who, with 
unskilful hands, build fences high and wide, and 
with presumptuous lips cry aloud, " The temple 
of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple 
of the Lord are these " ; you, who denounce those 
who are seeking the pearl of great price because 
they do not push their search in your domains ; 
you, who lay upon the necks of disciples a burden 
which neither our fathers nor we were able to 
bear ; you who distrust the discoveries and dis- 



ORDINANCES. 61 

courage .tlie advances of science because they 
trench upon your crude, preconceived notions of 
truth ; you, who seem to fancy that in the " march 
of mind" the ark will topple over unless you put 
forth unsanctified hands to steady it ; you, who 
wantonly or ignorantly confound looking at God 
through nature, with looking at nature as God, — 
him who strengthens his faith by studying the 
wonderful works of God, with him who first 
wrests them from their author, and then substi- 
tutes them for faith, changing the beauty of 
ear-rings and bracelets into the hideousness of a 
golden calf, and then falling down and worship- 
ping it. 

Do not, by any possibility, misunderstand me 
to advocate that namby-pambyism that rejects 
the creeds which it has not strength enough to 
grasp ; keeps itself afloat in a weak solution of 
feeble sentiment, second-hand poetry, borrowed 
metaphysics, and stolen Christianity ; proves its 
independence of thought by not thinking at all ; 
its elevation above the atmosphere of behef, by 
exploding in perpetual vacuum ; reviles the in- 
tellect which it cannot fathom ; pelts with mud 
the dead lions whose living roar would have im- 
parted to its heels a vigor never possessed by its 
head; mocks at the Samsons, blind and chained, 
grinding in the prison-houses of error, ft'om whose 
little finger, when free, it would have shrunk in 
shuddering dismay ; and, decrying the ministry of 



62 ORDINANCES. 

the word, is itself a perpetual sermon on the text, 
" Yanity of vanities." A creed is but the ex- 
pression of belief, and though the wisest man 
probably believes something that is not true, the 
very worst of creeds is better than no creed at all. 
Nothing is so fatal as indifference. In the snow- 
country it is better to go in the wrong road than 
to stop going altogether. The man who has no 
belief, would better sell all that he has and buy 
one. 

The natural religion that I mean is referred to 
in the sixty-fifth Psalm. The old Hebrews, half- 
civilized as they were, if not rather half-savage, 
were wiser in this thins; than we. To them it 
was the voice of the Lord that broke the cedars 
of Lebanon. It was the Lord that sat upon the 
flood. They saw his mercy in the heavens and 
his faithfulness reaching unto the clouds. It was 
he who prepared rain for the earth, and made the 
grass to grow upon the mountains, who gave to 
the beast his food, and to the young ravens which 
cried, who filled them with the finest wheat, scat- 
tered the hoar-frost like ashes, called forth his ice 
like morsels, caused his wind to blow and the 
waters to flow, brought out the hosts of the stars 
by number, and called them all by name. , 

Well will it be for us when the unlearned seek 
wisdom, and the learned humility ; when the 
fool on the one side and the philosoj^her on the 
other, — the child in knowledge and he that is a 



ORDINANCES. 63 

hundred years old, — shall alike call not only upon ^ 
his angels to praise the Lord, but " Praise ye him, 
sun and moon : praise ye him, all ye stars of light. 
Praise him, ye heaven of heavens, and ye waters 
that be above the heavens. Fire, and hail ; snow, 
and vapor ; stormy wind, fulfilling his word ; 
mountains, and all hills ; fruitful trees, and all 
cedars ; beasts, and all cattle ; creeping things, 
and flying fowl; praise the name of the Lord: 
for He commanded, and thsy were created. His 
name alone is excellent ; his glory is above the 
earth and heaven." 

Assembling together for prayer and praise is rath- 
er the festival of our religion than its practice. The 
work, the duty, the struggle, the thick and brunt of 
the battle,, come in the week-days. We meet to 
eat the bread and drink the waters of life. Dur- 
ing the week these ought to enter into the system, 
becoming blood and brain and nerve and sinew. 
If a man stays away from the banquet, he has his 
share of all the sorrow and suffering appointed 
to men ; yet rejects the consolation which the 
gentle ministrations of the Gospel afford. The 
curse that was pronounced upon Adam falls just 
as heavily on him ; yet he closes his ear to the 
soothing voice that would fain make him forget 
the burden, and rejects the outstretched hand that 
would help him bear it. His path is steep and 
difficult, like all paths, but he will not take the 
proffered cup that would "medicine his weariness." 



G4 ORDINANCES. 

If it is his ignorance, lie is surely to be pitied ; shall 
he be any the less pitied if it is his sin ? Is not 
sin the saddest of all sorrows ? It was over wild 
and wicked men — a fierce and violent rabble — 
that Christ's heart melted in infinite compassion. 
" O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that Jcillest the 
prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee,^'' 
It is this Divine pity that we need, — this godlike 
yearning over sin-sick souls. We are too apt to 
be wanting in charity, tenderness, consideration. 
We try to drive where we should seek to win. 
We remember Christ's " O serpents, generation 
of vipers ! " and forget his " that ye love one 
another." We are more ready to follow him 
with the scourge of small cords in our hands, than 
with his new commandment in our hearts. If 
God saw as man sees, scarcely could the righteous 
be saved. He knoweth our frame; He remem- 
bereth that we are dust. Man, often ignorant of 
the one, is often forgetful of the other. We can 
hardly be too severe in judging ourselves, or too 
lenient in judging others. Generally he who 
is most just toward himself is most charitable 
toward his neighbors. 

There is not a little self-indulgence mingled 
with our church-going. The meeting-house is 
not always the post of duty. A father goes in 
the morning with his older children, and leaves 
his wife with a fretful, sickly baby in her arms. 
All day long she nurses the suffering child. Not 



ORDINANCES. 65 

a moment of rest, not a chapter from her Bible, 
does the Sabbath bring to her. It is one long 
weariness and anxiety. I think that man would 
serve God a great deal more effectually by staying 
at home and minding the baby awhile, so that the 
mother can get a little quiet out of her Sunday, 
than by going to church and listening compla- 
cently to two or three excellent sermons. 

Fathers and mothers often forget the wants 
of their little ones. The poor things are too 
young to understand or enjoy Sabbath services, 
and- not young enough to be kept at home and 
amused, — particularly if there is no servant. So 
the time which should be a holiday for the body, 
and a holy day for the soul, drags wearily on for 
them. They nestle restlessly, or sleep mercifully, 
through the long sermons, and employ themselves 
at home as best they can. The legitimate chan- 
nels through which their life flows being cut off, 
their exuberance is continually carving for itself 
new and illegitimate ones. Happy, both for 
themselves and their parents, is the hour that 
sees their little feet pattering bedward. It ought 
not to be so. Sunday cannot be too early made 
the bright day of childhood. All that is beautiful 
and pleasant and sunshiny, as well as all that is 
holy, ought to be entwined with their Sunday 
memories. 

This cannot be done without self-sacrifice. 
Children must have sometliing to do ; otherwise 



66 ORDINANCES. 

they will make sometliing, and that sometliing will 
generally be mischief. They are active, and not 
passive. Their spirits should not be repressed, 
but guided. It is not enough that they be kept 
out of danger ; they should be instructed, amused, 
and made happy, — not by servile petting, but by 
wise training. The nursery can be wi^apped in 
Sunday surroundings. It needs no formidable 
preparation. A few books and pictures by the 
father's or mother's eye and hand and voice can 
be invested with attraction. Love is fertile in 
expedients. 

Yet it is true that it cannot be done without 
time and trouble. But if one of the reasons why 
children are born is not to discipline their parents 
by trouble, why were they not born all grown up ? 
It would be far easier for the father and mother to 
leave their children to the care or the carelessness 
of a hired nurse and enjoy themselves in church, — 
or, if there be no nurse, to take the young unfor- 
tunates with them, to sleep or wriggle or sit out 
in dumb, sad patience what seems to them an in- 
terminable sermon, — than it would be to stay at 
home and provide for the wants of these eager 
young souls, just dancing on the threshold o'l life ; 
but there is no trouble like the trouble with which 
a child's folly, sin, and shame bring his father's 
gray hairs to the grave. If the day should ever 
come when your house is left unto you desolate, 
your hopes shattered, and your heart broken, 



ORDINANCES. 67 

through a son's misdoing, you will look with bitter 
and unavailing regret on the time when his guile- 
less soul, his loving, plastic nature, and every in- 
nocent charm of childhood, called to you to cherish 
and save, and you would not hear. There is that 
withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to 
poverty. 

Devote at least a part of your day to the moral 
needs of your dependent httle ones. Let them go 
to church, even if they do not understand. They 
need discipline as well as their parents, and they 
also need to form habits of church-going. But 
do not keep them at it longer than they are able 
to bear. Let pleasure share with duty the oppor- 
tunity to interest and the power to teach. 

As men live in communities, it is often neces- 
sary to ask, " What will be the influence of my 
action ? what would be the consequence if every 
one should do as I do ? " in order to answer the 
question, " Am I doing right ? " The fact that 
we sometimes lay too great stress on this point is 
not a reason why we should lay on it no stress at 
all. While it is true that a right action is always 
to be done, and a wrong action always to be 
shunned, be the consequences what they may, it 
is also true that there are actions whose character 
is determined by the consequences which are de- 
signed, or which may be expected to flow from 
them. If a boy goes to college, or a girl takes a 
daily walk, because it is what he or she likes to do 



68 ORDINANCES. 

better tlian anything else, it is simply innocent ; 
if tliey do it against tlieir inclination, but cheer- 
fully because their father wishes it and they desire 
to obey and please him, it becomes virtuous ; if 
beyond this they are actuated by the desire to do 
right, — to please God by obeying their father, — it 
is religion. The motive of action often lifts the 
action out of the slough of sin, or off the plane 
of innocence, to the higher planes of virtue and 
religion. The Paul who withstood Peter to the 
face because he was to be blamed, was the same 
Paul who would eat no meat while the world stand- 
eth, lest he make his brother to offend. It was 
the motive alone which made the first act bravery 
and not brawling ; and the second, consideration 
and not cowardice. The boldness with which he 
bearded Peter was no more praiseworthy, and 
certainly I think less rare, than the liberality and 
courtesy which induced him to abstain from meat. 
Inextricably woven together as the lives and 
destinies of men are, the greatest good of the 
greatest number seems to be the direct object of 
that course of action whose ultimate end is to glo- 
rify God and enjoy him forever. So far as indi- 
vidual happiness may consist therewith, it is to be 
consulted ; but if the tvf o clash, individual happi- 
ness must give way. Now it often happens that 
the two do clash. The highest real good of the 
many can be obtained only by sacrificing the 
highest apparent good of the few. Yet does this 



ORDINANCES. 69 

in no wise affect the duty of all — not excepting 
the sufferers themselves — to work for the highest 
general good. Common law recognizes this. A 
butcher is not allowed to place his slaughter-house 
wherever it may be most convenient to himself; 
nor a farmer to dam up, for his own purposes, in 
his own field, a brook, whose stoppage would di- 
minish the value of his neighbor's field. If, then, 
a man is not suffered by law to benefit his purse 
at the expense of his neighbor's, he certainly ought 
not to be allowed by religion to benefit his soul at 
the expense of his neighbor's. As a matter of fact 
I do not suppose this can ever happen. Material 
and spiritual laws differ so far, that the good which 
he might obtain from his liberty would be over- 
balanced by the evil which he would suffer from 
his selfishness. 

Attendance and non-attendance upon church- 
services are not, therefore, to be decided solely by 
their effects upon individuals, but upon the com- 
munity. A man may believe that he should re- 
ceive more benefit by stopping away from church 
altogether ; yet, unless he thinks it would be bet- 
ter on the whole for every one to do the same, 
and Sabbath services, therefore, to be discontin- 
ued, it would not be right for him to do it. Event- 
ually he would not suffer, since, as I have before 
intimated, his loss in one direction would be more 
than compensated by his gain in another. But a 
conscientious and wise man would not probably 



70 ORDINANCES. 

consider a difference of opinion or of taste between 
himself and his pastor or his fellow-worshippers 
sufficient to justify such a course of action. Noth- 
ing would be enough except a conviction that his 
attendance would be a connivance at wrong, — in 
which case, he Avould think it right for every man 
to do the same. 

A man might, indeed, say that he would have 
every one imitate himself m so far as that he should 
judge for himself, and go, or refrain from going, 
as he chose ; and when the Millennium comes, I 
have no doubt this is precisely what we shall do ; 
but for a few years more, probably, we shall have 
to act, not simply with reference to the true, the 
thoughtful, the wise., and the good, whose sole 
object is to find the right path, and to walk there- 
in, but to the careless, the frivolous, the unthink- 
ing, the selfish, who need to be coaxed and tempted 
and drawn and driven into the kingdom of heaven. 
We will not, however, dwell on this part of the 
subject, but consider the consequences that would 
ensue if every one should adopt the plan of going 
to church once or twice on Smiday, instead of 
twice or thrice. 

I shall suppose that a plan is to be adopted., — 
intelhgently, conscientiously, from principle, — and 
not that a habit is to be fallen into carelessly, from 
indifference or laziness. And here let me say, my 
irreligious friend, that you can, if you choose, 
wrest my words, as the words of better and 



ORDINANCES. 71 

wiser persons than I have been wrested, to your 
own destruction, but I disclaim responsibihty for 
any such consequences. I shall express my views 
as clearly as I can ; and if lukewarm piety in any 
of its thousand-fold manifestations shall be aided 
or abetted by any word of mine, it will be because 
I have not the intellectual power to express my 
opinions and convictions in intelligible language. 
What I wish and design is, not to smooth the broad 
way, but to knock as many stumbling-blocks as 
possible out of the narrow way. I address myself 
particularly to the conscientious, to Christians, to 
those who would count all things but loss if they 
might so win souls to Christ, to men who for the 
truth's sake would march to the stake, who would 
willingly prove all things in order that they might 
hold fast that which is good, but who, in pursuit 
of noblest ends, do not employ the wisest means. 
I address them not for their own sakes merely, but 
for the sake of the lost souls who wander up and 
down, poor and miserable and blind and naked, 
to whom the light of God's Word is dimmed by 
the imperfections of the glass through which, al- 
most alone, it darkly shines on them. If there 
are Christians who are perfectly satisfied with the 
present state of things, — wdio think that every- 
thing; is doincr that can be done to Christianize 
the world, — who believe that all future changes 
in modes of ojoeration must be of degree, not of 
kind, — I do not speak to them ; but to those who 



72 ORDINANCES. 

believe in a moral as well as in a material progres- 
sion, — who believe that in grasping truth we 
have not attamed all truth, — who would gladly 
receive from any quarter, however humble, any 
suggestion, however faint, which professes to en- 
deavor to show how "one more unfortunate" may 
be brought in from the highways and hedges to 
the feast of the Lord. 

The first obvious result would be irregular, and 
often small audiences, which would embarrass and 
discourage the minister. Tiiis, however, is an evil 
not without remedy. The minister, being a sen- 
sible man, as well as a devout Christian, has only 
to proportion the number of his services to the 
number of his hearers. If a large part of his con- 
gregation prefer no afternoon sermon, why should 
he not omit the afternoon sermon ? In every 
place where there is more than one EvangeHcal 
church, the ministers could preach in their own 
churches in the morning, and have preaching by 
turns in each other's churches in the afternoon. 
This would give those who wish to go all day an 
opportunity to do so, wdiile it would also be con- 
venient for those who may be detained in the 
morning. The father and mother or nurse could 
take turns in minding the little ones at home, and 
at the same time feel that they were reaping the 
full benefit of the pastor's ripest thought. For 
(as a second result) any man's one sermon a week 
would probably be better than the best of his two 



ORDINANCES. 73 

a week, on an average ; while he who addresses a 
congregation gathered from two or three churches 
would be excited by that circumstance to do his 
best, and his best would be better than if he were 
obliged to write two or three sermons every week. 
There may be objections to this plan. The mother 
who stays at home with the baby in the morning, 
might choose to hear her own minister in the 
afternoon rather than be obliged to have recourse 
to a stranger. This, however, is only one of 
several disadvantages that arise naturally from 
babies, and must be compensated from domestic 
resources. Arrangements can be made so that 
she can hear her own pastor once a fortnight at 
least, and a good sermon once a fortnight is better 
than a poor one once a week. The deficiency must 
be made up by considerations of the general good, 
— assuming, of course, that the general good 
would thereby be increased. Another objection 
is, that, unfortunately, the relations of Christian 
congregations are sometimes such as to preclude 
the possibility of any such fraternal commingling. 
Such congregations can only be recommended to 
give up preaching altogether, and fast and pray 
themselves into a better state of mind. The petty 
feuds and jealousies and bickerings which some- 
times exist between neighboring congregations 
are a disgrace to our Christianity, and make the 
" See how these Christians love one another ! " a 
burning and bitter sarcasm. 



74 ORDINANCES. 

A better plan still, and one that seems to me to 
combine every excellence and exclude every de- 
fect, is that wliich lias already been adopted by 
some churches, namely, to have preaching in the 
morning and Sabbath school in the afternoon. 
This can be done equally well whether there be 
one or more churches in a town. But in any 
society it should be universal ; that is, the Sab- 
bath school should not be considered as estabhshed 
for the young only, but for all, just as much as the 
preaching is for all. All the intellect, all the 
available force of the congregation, should be 
brought in and used, either in the way of teach- 
ing or learning. It should be no superficial thing, 
— a half-hour or an hour spent in languidly tri- 
fling over a portion of Scripture with wandering 
eyes, divided attention, and ill-concealed weari- 
ness. It should be taken hold of by aU — both 
teachers and scholars — as a work to be done. 
The most vio;orous minds should be enlisted, the 
most powerful brains aroused, the deepest thought 
stirred. Rough mmds will gain polish, and pol- 
ished minds will gain strength. The Bible should 
be looked upon, not as a nosegay to be gracefully 
carried and daintily held ; but as a mine to be 
explored with fixed faith in its treasured gold. 
The whole congregation can be put on the quest 
of one truth. The child and the man can investi- 
gate the same subject. The former will, of course, 
only take its more obvious bearmgs ; the latter 



ORDINANCES. 75 

will exploie its inner workings; and between the 
two will be every grade of interest and discovery. 
The people will become the active searchers for 
truth, instead of its passive recipients. Yet while 
their efficiency will be increased, their receptivity 
will be increased in proportion. The pastor's 
sermons will be far better understood and appre- 
ciated, and far more effectual, because the soil will 
have been broken up and made ready for the seed, 
instead of being hard and sun-baked as it often is. 
His close contact with his people will give point 
to his sermons. The Sabbath school will be a band 
of union. Pastor and people will stand on com- 
mon ground. He will get at hearts. He will 
learn the difficulties that beset common mmds. 
He will strike out ideas. New trains of thought 
will be suggested to him. He will be continu- 
ally taking new stand-points. He will know the 
needs, the redundancies and the deficiencies, of 
his people. He will learn their spiritual and intel- 
lectual peculiarities, and where the most effective 
blows are to be struck. The energies of the 
Church will be brought out and developed. It 
will be a power instead of a weight, a hive in- 
stead of a sepulchre, a vineyard of the Lord 
mstead of a valley of dry bones. 

Instead of one preacher, there will be fifty 
preachers. Every pastor will be the leader of a 
host, and every church a magazine of weapons 
mighty through God to the pulling down of 
strongholds. 



76 ORDINANCES. 

The benefit of some such arrangement to cler- 
gymen, and — smce whatever benefits the pastor 
benefits the people — to the people, would be in- 
calculable. Not only would it give him a broader 
sweep, but a clearer vision. It is in the nature 
of things impossible that a man should write tlnree 
sermons a week, year in and year out, without 
a deterioration in the quality both of his sermons 
and of his mind ; not that his last sermons grow 
worse than his first, but worse than they would 
have been if he wrote fewer of them. The 
reason of this is not, as many suppose, that he 
writes himself empty, that the fountain runs dry, 
that he has nothing to say, and, being forced to 
say something, must utter platitudes. On the 
contrary, I suspect that ministers scarcely ever 
catch up with then' note-books. There is a great 
deal of wickedness in the world, and a great deal 
of holiness in the Bible. It is the business of 
the minister to bring the two into contact; to 
transfix man's falsehood with • God's truth ; to 
dissipate the mists of sin and stupidity with the 
clear shinino; of the Sun of Righteousness : to 
stab every brazen-faced vice with the sword of 
the Spirit ; to bring the lamp of the word to 
bear upon all the hidden things of darkness, and 
reveal their loathsomeness. Whether this can be 
done with or without observation, it is equally 
his duty to it. We must reason of righteousness, 
temperance, and judgment to come, whether Fe- 



ORDINANCES. 77 

llx scoff or tremble ; and until there remains on 
earth no sin to be rebuked, no ignorance to be 
taught, no soul to be saved, the minister will 
hardly lack themes. 

But to their successful treatment time is neces- 
sary ; — time to compare, to infer, to illustrate, 
and to present ; time to observe and collate facts, 
and to deduce conclusions ; time to investigate 
the past, to comprehend the present, and to shape 
the future. Can any minister, who at all appre- 
ciates his calling, save time enough from his 
family, social, and parochial duties to bring all 
his forces to bear on the elucidation of three, or 
even two, separate subjects every week, in such 
a manner that the presentation of his views shall 
be in every case the very best that it is possible 
for him to make ? This is, I think, what every 
minister should aim at, what every people have 
a right to expect, and what they should endeavor 
by every means in their power to help him do. 
If the same amount of study, research, and 
thought that is spread over three sermons were 
concentrated on one, the one subject would be so 
much better managed, the one truth would be 
presented with so much more deftness, point, and 
pungency, that the Gospel would seem to start 
up into new life. The very consciousness that he 
could mve his whole thouo-ht and streno;th to one 
thing, would deepen the one and increase the 
other. He could throw himself into it unreserv- 



78 ORDINANCES. 

edlj, distracted by no misgivings as to wLat was 
to become of the second sermon. There would 
be a Tinitj of design, a skill in execution, and a 
completeness of effect, which would not only give 
him pleasure in the present, but would nerve him 
to new exertions in the future, — while his other 
duties, havino" a reasonable time allotted to their 
performance, would refresh instead of wearying 
him, — would return him to his study eager to 
grapple with his theme, instead of hurried, ner- 
vous, conscious of being unable to do anything as 
it should be done, and worried by that conscious- 
ness into still greater inability. 

To the people, also, it seems to me that, apart 
from every other consideration, one sermon would 
do just as much good as two. A thorough expo- 
sition of one doctrine will give them food enough 
for thought, — a forcible inculcation of one duty 
will give them opportunity enough for practice 
until the next Sunday comes. In fact, the im- 
pression of one sermon is likely to be deeper 
than that of two. If it is good, it may be better 
left to work its own way undisturbed. If it is 
poor, the second will probably be poorer. A 
good sermon following close upon the heels of 
a good sermon, distracts the attention, annuls the 
eflPects of the first, and prevents a practical appli- 
cation of either. A poor serm^on following a 
good one, acts like damp air on an electrical 
machine. 



ORDINANCES. 79 

" But is going to church too much one of the 
crying sins of the age ? " it has been asked. 
Js it not a waste of ammunition to fire away at 
whet is at most only an error of judgment, and 
tliatin the right direction, when so many grievous 
sins spring up in deadly hixuriance around us ? 
Very true, church-going is not a crying sin, and, 
if i; stopped wdth itself, might well be let alone ; 
bui when one has a headache, you put mustard- 
poultices on his feet. Why do you do it ? His 
feet are well enough ; it is his head that is dis- 
ordered. Why not poultice that ? Because you 
k.iow that the best way, or at least one of the 
ways, to get at his head, is through his feet. 
The head and the feet and the limbs are not 
separate individualities, but members of one body ; 
and whether one member suffer, all the members 
suffer with it ; or one member be honored, all the 
members rejoice with it. If the feet are too 
swift, whether to evil or to good, it is not the 
feet only that presently falter, but the whole head 
is sick and the whole heart faint. So also is 
Christ. Ye are the body of Christ, and members 
in particular. Wrong in one may produce wrong, 
either the same or different, in another ; and even 
error may produce wrong. Consumption in one 
generation gives asthma to the next. The moth- 
er's scrofula distorts the child's spine. The 
drunkard's blear eyes come out in the son's blood- 
less lips. Is it not possible that there may be 



80 ORDINANCES. 

a closer connection than you think between your 
multiplication of new moons and sacrifices, and 
the mournful companies that are going down to 
the chamber of death ? If they be not the " cry- 
ing sin," may they not be one of the causes ihat 
produce it ? Or, if they do not actually produce 
it, do they tend to prevent its immediate removal ? 
No crime is so small that we can afford to comnit 
it, no mistake so slight that we can afford to mace 
it. A single misplaced figure in the calculatim 
sends a ship plunging upon the pitiless rocks, aid 
the waters sweep over it forever. 

That people sin is no reason why we should go 
on blunderino;. Our brother's faults are no excuse 
for our foibles. Because men cheat each other, 
shall we lie in bed in the morning ? Shall we 
pursue a com'se of action not the best, because it 
is not the worst? 

Man's chief end is to glorify God. But there 
are two ways of glorifying him ; one is to worship 
him, the other is to work with and for him. In 
the one, we meet to call upon his name, to praise 
his excellences, to discover his will ; in the 
other, we strive, or ought to strive, to get his 
Gospel into the heart, and bring it out in the life, 
of Smith the merchant, and Brown the farmer, 
and Jones the pickpocket, and Jenkins the poli- 
tician. If a great sin stands in the way of Christ, 
and prevents his advance, by all means slay the 
great sin ; but if a little error retards his ap- 



ORDINANCES. 81 

proach, do not hesitate to remove that, even if the 
sin be not slain. Whatsoever thy hand finds to 
do, do it with thy might. 

I do not consider that those who stop at home 
in the morning because it is cloudy, in the after- 
noon because it is warm, in the evening because 
it is foggy, — who saunter lazily, or ride aimlessly, 
or read indiscriminately, or doze listlessly through 
the Sabbath hours, — have solved the problem. 
While I do not desire to see the Sabbath become 
a Jewish rite on the one hand, neither do I desire 
to see it become a German holiday on the other, 
but a Christian festival. It should be a day of 
rest ; but indolence and negligence are not rest ; 
nor is a mere ceasing from labor the highest kind 
of rest. 

The Sabbath was made for us. Let us neither 
abuse nor neglect, but use it. Let it be the 
servant of our souls ; not the slave either of our 
prejudice or our folly. I claim and desire no lib- 
erty but that wherewith Christ hath made us free. 
That I want in largest measure. 

O for the tender, loving, considerate spirit of 
Christ, who, by a new consecration, gave the 
Sabbath doubly to man, — to be alike the ser- 
vant of his humblest needs and his highest aspi- 
rations ! 



4* 



IV, 



CHURCH-SITTINGS. 




OTWITHSTANDING the higli esti- 
mation in which we hold public wor- 
ship, we keep back a large part of the 
community from joining in public 
worship. While with one hand we unduly press 
men into the Church, with the other we mijustly 
shut them out. This must be wrong. Any sys- 
tem must be wrong which prevents the poor from 
hearing the Gospel. When the disciples of John 
would know from Christ's own lips whether he 
was indeed the Messiah, the Dehverer, he gave 
them certain signs whereby they should be able 
to judge for themselves. One of these signs was 
" the poor have the Gospel preached unto them." 
If that was a criterion in the days of Christ, I 
know no reason why it should not be a criterion 
now. But if it is, there are many churches whose 
creed may be profoundly orthodox, yet whose 
practice in this respect would not entitle them to 
be called Christian churches. 



CHURCH-SITTINGS. 83 

Magnificent church edifices are not objection- 
able, if rightly come by. Nothing is too rich, too 
beautiful, too grand, for the temple of the Most 
High ; but if, when these structures are built, 
they are accessible only to the rich, they are not 
the temples of the Lord, but the temples of the 
money that built them. I do not see how they 
can be anything but an abomination to the Lord. 
A majority of Christians profess to believe that 
the ordinances of the Sabbath day are an especial 
and paramount " means of grace." If, then. Chris- 
tians build costly churches, and cause that " every 
door is barred with gold, and opens but to golden 
keys," what are they doing but practically and 
effectually, on their own showing, shutting poor 
people out from the means of grace? Combin- 
ing the doctrines and the customs of some church- 
es, we can but arrive at the conclusion, that it is 
easier for a camel to go through the eye of a 
needle than for a poor man to enter into the king- 
dom of Heaven. Why should we send money to 
convert the heathen abroad, and shut church-doors 
in the faces of poor Christians at home ? We do 
it. Pew-rents in several — I think in many — of 
the churches in our large cities are such as to ren- 
der it impossible, not only for the impoverished, 
but wellnigh impossible for any but the rich, to 
obtain seats. A mechanic, moving into the city 
fi'om a country village, with a family to support, a 
clerk with a salary of a thousand dollars, a young 



8-4 CHURCH-SITTINGS. 

mercliant struggling for existence, cannot take a 
pew and go to church with his family. And if he 
stays at home, and gradually loses the distinctive- 
ness of Sunday, — if his children grow up without 
any church home, or any of the influences and 
associations that often do, and always should, clus- 
ter around a church home, — am I my brother's 
keeper ? 

How must these things look to those who are 
thus shut out ? The industrious and respectable 
mechanic, who has been trained under religious 
influences, though he has not wholly yielded to 
them, and who, coming from the social and home- 
like country into the city, naturally seeks among 
the first requisites a place where his family may 
weekly worship according to their wont, — what 
does he think, how does he feel, as he turns away 
from one and another church because the expense 
will not permit him to enter ? The poverty- 
stricken, squalid, houseless, friendless poor, — do 
such customs tend to induce the belief in their 
hearts that Christianity is the common blessing of 
all mankind ? How lonff shall the right hand 
baflle the left ? How lono; shall we declare that 
the Gospel is to be the redemption of all, that the 
good tidings of great joy shall be to all people, 
and then stall up the very place where that Gos- 
pel is dispensed, the very place where those good 
tidings are proclaimed, as closely and exclusively 
as if salvation were the prerogative of moneyed 



CHURCH-SITTINGS. 85 

men ? How long will it take to *' convert " Bos- 
ton, New York, Baltimore, at this rate ? 

I have heard of churches where the pews are 
locked, and only their owners are suffered to enter 
them. May they stay locked to all Christian men I 
O my soul, come not thou into their secrets ! 
Unto such assemblies, mine honor, be not thou 
united ! These pew-owners, it must be conclud- 
ed, expect to get into heaven through a private 
entrance. They have made a gravel-path outside 
the strait and narrow way, along which they 
may walk with stretched-forth jiecks and wanton 
eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and so be 
happily apart from vulgar travellers toward the 
celestial city. There is a postern-gate remote 
from the thronged portals, which opens only to 
their touch. They have rented beforehand the 
stateliest of the many mansions, and will meet 
only their own set in the golden streets. Is it 
religion or is it travesty ? 

I suppose there must be some justification, some 
cause, for this thing. If there is, I wish it could 
be brought forward. I am utterly at a loss even 
to conjecture it. To me it looks eminently and 
only unchristian, — directly and sharply opposed 
to the whole spirit of the Gospel. 

It is said that provision is made for the poor, 
that chapels are built in which they are invited 
to worship without any expense. But, God be 
thanked ! the great majority of honest, hard-work- 



86 CHURCH-SITTINGS. 

ing Northerners have too mucli dignity and self- 
respect to accept alms. They have a sensitiveness 
as delicate as that of the millionnaire. They will 
not live upon his charity any more willingly than 
he will live upon theirs. And this feeling — call it 
pride, or what you will — is both a beneficial and 
an honorable one. It is a bulwark against evil, 
and he intends mischief who would do anything 
to pull it down. A great majority of these peo- 
ple would choose to stay away from church alto- 
gether, rather than become the recipients of char- 
ity ; and who can blame them ? Moreover, even 
if they were willing to go to the chui'ches pro- 
vided for them, the defect would not be remedied. 
We do not want — the world does not want — 
one church for the rich and one for the poor. We 
want a church where the rich and the poor meet 
together ; the Lord is the Maker of them all. In 
other respects there may, and often must, be dis- 
tinctions ; but here every man stands, a naked 
soul before God. Christ died for all ahke, Heaven 
beckons to all. Alas ! is not Hell from beneath 
moved for all to meet them at their comino; ? In 
this matter, neither circumcision availeth anything 
nor uncircumcision ; but whosoever is athhst, let 
him come and drink freely, "wdthout money and 
without price. Learning, leisure, wit, wealth, may 
be the boon of the few, but the Gospel is the legacy 
of humanity. Christianity cannot be broken into 
grades by earthly distinctions without detriment. 



CHURCH-SITTINGS. 87 

At the feast of the Passover, the master and the 
slave ahke partook : is Christianity more exclu- 
sive than Judaism ? Is the salvation of the world 
a less powerful solvent than the salvation of the 
first-born of the families of Israel ? If Christ 
could wash the feet of his disciples, cannot those 
disciples tolerate each other's presence ? 

I believe in the very utmost levelling, the thor- 
ough radical democracy of the Bible. The only 
degrees it knows are degrees of holiness. Among 
them that are born of women, there may be none 
greater than John the Baptist ; yet he that is 
least in the kingdom of Heaven is greater than 
he. I do not believe religion will be aggressive 
in any community when it is not allowed free 
course to run and be glorified. 

Our system — the system of building churches, 
and selling or renting the pews — is selfish even 
in its appearance. The idea of personal proper- 
ty is prominent. Surely every church ought to 
beacon to every wayfarer. Surely there should 
be no self intruding into social worship. As it is 
now, if a stranger moves into your parish, you 
cannot invite him to your church, and your 
church hospitalities, without laying yourself open 
to the suspicion of catering for your own inter- 
ests. You want to help out your society; you 
want his money to pay the expenses of the parish. 
Your hands may be ever so clean, but they will 
not look clean to a wicked and perverse generation. 



88 CHURCH-SITTINGS. 

Why cannot the whole matter of church taxes 
be abohshed, and the church rest entirely upon 
free-will offerings ? Why not let every man be 
accountable to God alone for what he shall do to 
— shall I use that common phrase ? — " support 
the Gospel " ? No ; for wrong words, even if 
they do not spring from wrong ideas, tend to 
originate and perpetuate them. People do not 
support the Gospel ; the Gospel supports them. 
The Gospel will live, whether they do or do not 
pay their five or fifty or five hundred dollars to 
uphold it. The Gospel will live, whether they 
attack, neglect, or cherish it ; but without the 
Gospel, the good tidings, there is for them no life, 
"neither in this world, neither in the world to 
come." Our work is, not to support the Gospel, 
but to spread the Gospel and drive it home. The 
Gospel is no pauper, but a king. We are not to 
dole out to it a fitful pittance, but march under its 
banners, conquering and to conquer. 

I would have the whole matter of church-rates 
taken out of mercantile, and put upon missionary 
ground. A Christian community has built a costly 
church. If that costly church is open only to those 
who can afford to buy a pew in it, it would much 
better have been a pine shanty, or even a canvas 
tent. If the mission of a church is to be subordi- 
nate to its architecture, then architecture is a de- 
vice of the Adversary. Let a community build a 
church, and then throw its doors wide open to 



CHURCH-SITTINGS. 89 

everybody, — -yes, to everybody, native and for- 
eign, black and white, beggar, brigand, pick- 
pocket, — the worse the better, — and then archi- 
tecture may become the handmaiden of the Lord. 
Make your church beautiful, if so you may better, 
express your love to God, — your appreciation of, 
and your gratitude for, the beauty which he has 
lavished ; make it attractive, if so you may better 
lure outcasts into the fold ; but let not ostentation 
or rivalry or ambition reign where only devotion 
should dwell ; for so you shall have no cherubim, 
with outstretched wings, hovering over the mercy- 
seat, but only a golden calf. 

Do you say that the by-way people will not 
come to church, even if there is one ? Do you 
get the church ready, do you open the doors, then 
go out into the highways and hedges and compel 
them to come in ; meet them at the porch-door 
with smiles, and warm words, and hearty hand- 
shakings ; give them good seats, not in a corner 
by themselves, but among your own friends, with 
your own family, or by your own self; show, if 
possible, a little interest in them during the week ; 
and, if they still continue stiflF-necked and rebel- 
lious, think how much harder must be the work 
of the missionaries, who go thousands of miles to 
meet the heathen in their strongholds, than yours, 
who find your heathen under the droppings of 
your own sanctuary ! 

And if the outcasts do not come, there is an- 



90 CHURCH-SITTINGS. 

other class who will, — the poor who live, not by 
shifts, but by honest and persistent industry, — men 
and women whose days are given over to severe 
and unintermitting toil ; who have money scarcely 
beyond the utmost needs of life ; whose ingenuity 
expends itself in making a cent do the work of a 
dime, and a dime the work of a dollar ; the men 
and women who cannot incur the expense of 
church-sittings, yet who pre-eminently need the 
comfort and strength of church-service. These 
people ought to be in the church. They need the 
church, and the church needs them. They ought 
to be in it, not as mendicants, not by patronage or 
permission, but as children of one Father, disciples 
of one Christ, members of one flock bound to- 
gether by a common need and a common hope. 
They ought to stand, rich and poor, on one level, 
interchanging friendly greetings, conversant with 
each other's views and fears and feehngs, —joint 
students of the Bible, joint servants of the Lord. 
It is not necessary nor possible nor desirable that 
all should move on one social plane. Tastes and 
occupations must decide that. But if religion is 
not strong enough to rise above social distinctions, 
to create friendliness between different classes, to 
make the rich kindly and genial to the poor, and 
not patronizing or scornful, — to make the poor 
trustful and serviceable toward the rich, and not 
servile or haughty, — so that each class shall be 
reckoned the friend of the others,— so that he 



CHURCH-SITTINGS. 91 



that is greatest and he that is least shall alike be 
the servant of all, — then religion has not done 
the work which it was appointed to do. "With a 
church free, — free, not with inferences and con- 
ditions that encroach upon self-respect, but abso- 
lutely free, — I feel sure that many, many more 
of these classes would find their way into the 
courts of the sanctuary, and that it would be 
much more a sanctuary than it is now. 

But how shall the church be paid for ? The 
warmest missionary feeling does not pay a debt 
which is represented by coin. Very well. A 
community that is able to build a church, and sell 
pews, is able to build a church without selling the 
pews. If you are rich enough to build a church 
for yourself, you are rich enough to build it for 
your neighbors. If you are able to own a pew, 
you are able to give it away. I do not mean that 
you can do both, but you can do one as well as 
the other. Churches are now built mainly by 
voluntary contributions. Let them still be built 
by voluntary contributions ; only, when they are 
built, let them be churches, and not ecclesiastical 
drawing-rooms. Make your church as fine as 
yon will, only not too fine to be trodden by dusty 
feet. Let it be just as good as you can afford to 
give away in the name of the Lord, and no better; 
for, beyond this, sin lieth at the door. 

But, besides the original outlay, come the con- 
tinuous expenses of preaching, and all the minor 



92 CHURCH-SITTINGS. 

details. What of these ? I would have every- 
one of jou, upon the first day of the week, lay by 
him in store as God hath prospered him. Let the 
'' contribution-box " be carried around on Sunday, 
and every man decide for himself and between 
liimself and God alone. Then the rich man may 
give of his abundance, and the poor man of his 
poverty, and both out of the love of their hearts. 
Then the poor man may feel that he is doing his 
part toward bearing the good tidings to a sor- 
rowful world ; and if he cannot bring a lamb 
without blemish, nor yet a turtle-dove, nor two 
young pigeons, his tenth part of an ephah of fine 
flour shall be a sin-offering holy and acceptable 
to God. 

Would this give but a precarious support to a 
pastor ? Not so precarious as that of his Master, 
who had not where to lay his head, — not so pre- 
carious as that of Ehjah, for whom the ravens were 
butcher and baker, and whose drink was the brook 
by the way, — not so precarious even as it is now. 
The minister would not only have just as much 
money as he now has, but it would not come to 
him, as it too often does, grinding, grating, scrap- 
ing out of rusty purses, with a noise of friction that 
puts every nerve to the torture ; it would leap out 
warm from the heart, shining with a love-light 
brighter than any gleam of gold, and so have to 
him a worth that no mere money can represent. 
As ministers receive their salaries now, it is nei- 



CHURCH-SITTINGS. 93 

ther one thing nor another. It is not a tax which 
people must pay or go to prison, and it is not a 
gift which blesseth him that gives and him that 
takes. It has neither the inexorableness of the 
one, nor the spontaneity of the other. It has free- 
will enough to admit of grumbling, and not enough 
to excite gratitude. It is a miserable half-and-half 
thing, all that I have ever seen of it. I do not 
mean that every man of a parish makes his " min- 
ister's tax " a disagreeable matter ; but there is 
more or less — generally more — disagreeableness 
to contend with in every parish. The very term 
" minister's tax " is harsh. It does state exactly 
what many people mean. It is not a free-will 
offering to help spread the Gospel. It is not a 
man's part to support the government. It is sim- 
ply and solely the minister^ tax; and it is not, and 
never will be, pleasant to have a man take you 
by the throat, and exclaim, " Pay me that thou 
owest." It is far too often that this sum is paid 
as if it were a personal charity to the minister. A 
grumbles because he is called on to subscribe thir- 
ty-five, while B, who is worth twice as much as 
he, only pays thirty, and C " signs off" from the 
parish, and pays nothing at all, and it is a burden 
everywhere. By having a system of free offerings, 
all this would be abrogated. Every man would 
be his own guide, and antagonisms would be 
soothed away. He that pays, pays unto the Lord, 
and he that pays not, unto the Lord he doth not 



94 CHURCH-SITTIXGS. 

pay it, and himself is the only judge. He knows 
his own circumstances better than another, and 
upon each returning Sabbath he gives as God has 
prospered him. He is not mulcted in a fine, but 
to the Saviour who died for him he brings a thank- 
offering, grateful. It is the helping hand which 
Jesus permits him to reach forth to save the world. 
It is the effort he can make to cause that Christ 
shall not have died in vain. 

Vrhy appeal to the lower part of man's nature, 
when there is a higher open to appeal ? AVhy 
insist that that shall be only a duty which might 
just as well be a delight ? All men are generous, 
if you but approach them generously ; or rather 
all men have a capacity for generosity, and, if it be 
not developed, it ought to be gently and genially 
educated into development. If it do not unfold 
in the kindly sunshine, there is surely no good in 
trying to split it open with a hammer. Men wiU 
sometimes pay the " minister's tax " loath, but the 
Gospel suffers more harm than it receives good 
from their money. " Of every man that giveth 
it willingly with his heart, ye shall take my offer- 
ing," commanded Jehovah to Moses. T\^hat was 
the result ? " They spake unto Moses, saying, 
The people bring much more than enough for 

the service of the work And Moses gave 

commandment, .... sa^^ncr, Let neither man nor 
woman make any more work for the offering of 
the sanctuary For the stuff they had was 



CHURCH-SITTINGS. 95 

sufficient, and too much.'''' Just so I believe it 
would be if we would have more faith in God 
and in the better parts of human nature, and less 
dependence on taxes and securities. Ministers 
would not only have a " support " for the body, 
but for the heart and soul, and, perhaps not at 
first, but after the whole system was in full play, 
there would be large surplusages to be disposed 
of. And whatsoever shall seem good to thee and 
to thy brethren to do with the rest of the silver 
and gold, that do after the will of your God. 

Another objection urged against church com- 
munism is, that it destroys the sweet and tender 
associations which cluster around the family pew. 
But does it of necessity ? Things in general have 
a wonderful tendency to fall into grooves. In a 
certain part of Massachusetts there are commons 
extending some eight miles. As you approach 
them from the city a sign-board entreats, " Don't 
rut the roads." Seeing that travellers have the 
whole pasture-land before them, one would sup- 
pose it to be easy to comply with this request ; 
but, in spite of broad commons and supplicating 
sign-board, right along in the same track goes 
carriage after carriage, wearing deeper and deeper 
ruts into the sandy soil, till it is already become 
harder for a light wagon to get off the track than 
it seems to be for many steam-carriages. Would 
not the same principle obtain in churches ? Would 
not families naturally fall into the same places? 



96 CHURCH-SITTINGS. 

and, especially if they wished to do it, would they 
not find it easy of accomplishment ? Are there not 
in our chapels and vestries at evening meetings 
certain seats where you always expect to find 
certain people ? Do you not know precisely where 
to look for Deacon Smith and his wife ? Are not 
'Squire Jones and his family always here, and Dr. 
Brown and his sister always there, or thereabouts, 
and all without any quarrelling or lohhyingf And 
if, instead of chapel and occasional meetings, it 
were church and rea;ular service, would not the 
tendency be still stronger ? I rather think affairs 
would arrange themselves so that a family which 
would fill a pew would be allowed to occupy a 
pew just as regularly as if it had a quitclaim deed 
to it ; and, of course, the longer a family occupies 
one pew, the stronger becomes its claim to it. Is 
not this enough for association ? It surely will 
not be said that ownership is necessary. Nobody 
will maintain that a pair of lovers can have no 
tender reminiscences of moonlit walks by summer 
seas because they do not hold the ocean in fee 
simple. 

But supposing it were true that associations 
would be somewhat disturbed, or even forestalled, 
would that be really a conclusive fact? The 
church is pre-eminently for social worship. The 
associations appropriate to it belong to the great 
family of Christ. There, God is our Father, Jesus 
our elder brother, and all who love him and all 



CHURCH-SITTINGS. 97 

"who seek him are his cliildren. All kinship of the 
flesh ought to be subordinate to this kinship of 
spirit. At the family altar you offer your family 
worship. By the very act of going to church 
your family yields, for the time, its family life, 
throwing it into the commonwealth, and becoming 
a part of the great congregation, and the great 
congregation becomes, or should become, one in 
Christ Jesus our Lord. What, then, have any 
one's personal associations to do against the utmost 
freedom of admittance? Between memories and 
a blank, one would of course choose memories ; 
but between my memories and my brother's life 
is there any room for choice ? Shall the poor 
man's children, for .whom Christ died, be ex- 
cluded from the sanctuary, that your children 
may look back In their maturity to some particular 
place in it with a soft sadness and love ? Shall 
the doors be closed to his children, that the walls 
may be more attractive to yours ? Shall the poor 
man be shut out of the church, that the rich man 
may be shut into a pew ? 

If churches were filled under the present man- 
agement, the principle would remain the same, 
though the practice would lose the most superflu- 
ous of Its odious features. It would still be invidi- 
ous for the rich to enjoy a Gospel which was not 
available to the poor. But the offset would be 
that a rich man's soul is worth just as much as a 
poor man's soul ; and whether you pay for a pcjw 



98 CHURCH-SITTINGS. 

five hundred dollars or nothing, a church can be 
no more than filled, and, having filled all, the duty 
would be to build others. But how many churches 
are there where full ranks are the rule, and vacan- 
cies the exception, — where, morning or evening, 
there is no opportunity to say, "And yet there is 
room " ? 

A man, poor in money, but rich in mental and 
moral treasures, tried to obtain a seat for himself 
and his family in one of the Boston churches, — 
one to which he was drawn by the peculiar adap- 
tation of the pastor's preaching to his own spiritual 
wants. He was willing to take the lowest seat in 
the synagogue ; but even that he found, upon in- 
quiry, to be utterly beyond his means. So he goes 
roaming about the city, now at this church, now at 
that, now at none, belonging nowhere, nowhere at 
home. I went one afternoon to the one at whose 
door he had knocked in vain. I judged at least 
one half the seats to be empty. Do you think I 
did not long to go up into that pulpit and preach 
a sermon at which both the ears of every one that 
heard it should tingle ? Woe unto you, Scribes 
and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye shut up the 
kingdom of Heaven against men ; for ye neither 
go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are 
entering to go in. 

A courteous and Christian writer, quoting cer- 
tain remarks regarding pew-locking in the first 
part of this article, while putting in a gentle and 



CHUR CII-SITTINGS. 99 

partial defence of the custom, thinks the remarks 
are too sweeping, and that there is in them noth- 
ing of tlie sweet spirit of the Gospel. Perhaps 
not, but the Gospel has other spirits than the sweet 
one ; and I submit that, when one stands face to 
face with a custom which openly and systemati- 
cally causes that the poor have not the Gospel 
preached unto them, it is no time for the exercise 
or the display of such a spirit. It was not the 
sweet spirit of the Gospel which the Pharisees 
heard in Christ's indignant thunders. It was 
rather the strong, yet such a strong as brings forth 
sweetness. Nay, I may almost say it was the sweet 
spirit, but revealing itself in another guise. It was 
the same Divine love and pity that shone in his 
tenderest words, — love for the poor, the ignorant, 
the oppressed, — which fired his lips against those 
who misled and oppressed them. And when, now, 
after the Gospel has had free course to run and be 
glorified for these eighteen hundred years, whole 
communities name themselves with Christ's name, 
and then, in order to receive the benefits of that 
Gospel whose own proof of its divinity is that it is 
to be preached unto the poor, form themselves into 
a close corporation which none can enter but by 
payment of a fee that is entirely beyond the means 
of a large majority of the people, it seems to me a 
spectacle that would have received the severest 
denunciations of Christ, and should receive the 
severest reprobation of Christians. 



100 CHUR CH-SITTINGS. 

To the law and to the testimony. If the Bible 
sanctions this practice, it is right. If the Bible 
discourages it, it is wrong. But if it is not direct- 
ly opposed to all the tendencies of Bible teachings, 
then Bible teachings are not plain enough to be 
understood by a common mind. If it is opposed 
to the Bible, then the men who advocate and up- 
hold it are bound to show cause for their action. 
The burden of proof lies ^vith them, and not with 
those who point out the discrepancy. Slavery is 
the mother of abominations. It is not for the 
assailants of slavery to stay their hands out of re- 
gard to the possible virtue of m.any slaveholders. 
It is for the virtuous slaveholders to come forth 
and demonstrate their virtue. I will not say that 
the people who lock pews and monopolize preach- 
ing are not Christians. Sanctification is a grad- 
ual process, and a man may be sanctified to the 
degree of going to church himself, and not to the 
degree of going out into the highways and alleys 
and inviting his brother to come to church. But 
a general view cannot take in individual virtues, 
and the general view show^s the great majority 
without a church-home, or any means to provide 
one, and the small minority sitting in state in their 
splendid waste-places ; this is not Christianity, but 
thoughtlessness, selfishness, stupidity, pride, mak- 
ing a great gap between the supply and demand 
of the bread of life ; and this w^ickedness, as disas- 
trous in its reflex as in its direct influence, and the 



CHURCH-SITTINGS. 101 

people who, professing to be guided bj the teach- 
ings of Christ, cherish or permit this wickedness, 
cannot fail to receive, in this respect, the unquali- 
fied censure of those who believe that " inasmuch 
as ye did it not to the least of these, my brethren, 
ye did it not to me." 

When it is asked, " If I am able to do thus 
and so, if I am able to hire a f 5,000 man and a 
$300 pew to hear him in, have I not a perfect 
right to do it, —just as much as I have a right to 
send my children to expensive schools beyond my 
neighbor's reach?" No, I answer emphatically, 
you have no such right, if there is any truth in 
the Bible, — if a Christ ever lived and died. You 
have a right, but it is a pagan right, a legal right, 
a right under the code of Justinian, not under the 
code of Jesus. Under the Law, every man looketh 
to the things of his own ; but under the Gospel, to 
the things of his neighbor. There needed no cru- 
cified Saviour to tell us that we mig-ht secure for 
ourselves the best things possible. We should have 
known that without the cross. But Christ died, 
the just for the unjust, and placed us forever under 
the most solemn bonds to love our neighbor as 
ourselves. Where our tastes conflict with our 
neighbor's life, we have no right to indulge them. 
Unless the- world is to be saved by some other 
foolishness than that of preaching, we have no 
right to keep preaching away from the world. If 
you think the Gospel is not necessary to men, or 



102 CHURCH-SITTINGS. 

if you tliink church services are not the best way, 
or not a good way, to present the Gospel to men, 
that is another question. But if you think church 
ser\"ices, at least at present, are pre-eminently the 
" means of grace," — so pre-eminently that those 
who are brought to Christ from beyond the limits of 
church influences are rare and remarkable excep- 
tions, — then you have no right to indulge in church 
luxuries whose effect is to remove from your broth- 
er church necessities. You shall not spread for 
yourself a feast of fat things, while Christ's little 
ones all around you are famishing for bread. 

It is said that a free-church system is impracti- 
cable. What does im/practicahle mean ? Every- 
thing is impracticable till it is put in practice. I 
am told that there are already several churches 
conducted on this plan. A slight sketch of the 
origin and history of such a church might be more 
useful than a great deal of theoretical talk. But 
the success or failure of any single enterprise of 
this nature does not settle the question, any more 
than the success or failure of any one attempt at 
congregational singing settles the question of cho- 
ral or congregational music. So many circum- 
stances come in to complicate matters, that one 
needs large induction. 

The experiment may be tried in bad faith, in a 
manner so hasty, injudicious, and half-and-half, 
that no good result shall follow. Begin without 
liarmony, understanding, sagacity, confidence, en- 



CHURCH-SITTINGS. 103 

thusiasm, or tact, and of course it will fail. Any- 
thing would fail under such circumstances. Grasp 
it so that you can have purchase before a failure 
shall be considered final. Let people be interest- 
ed. Let them feel the matter to be of as great 
importance as if they had embarked in it their 
whole fortune. Let them be determined to suc- 
ceed. The Hindoos and Siamese are not made to 
pay '* minister's tax," nor pew-rent; and if it is 
possible to send a free Gospel all around the globe, 
shall it be easily considered impossible to dispense 
it to the heathen and the half-Christianized — and 
these two classes very nearly exhaust the popula- 
tion — at our own doors ? Let the children of 
light be as wise in their generation as the children 
of this world, let Christian men organize as saga- 
ciously for Christ as politicians organize for poli- 
tics, let it be felt to be as essential to bring people 
to church on Sunday as it is to bring voters to 
the polls on election-day, and many an impracti- 
cability would pass into an accomplishment. 

To give money to build a church in a pov- 
erty-stricken locality, to support it by contribu- 
tions, and occasional attendance from neighboring 
churches, and make it a kind of pet charity, may 
be a Christian deed ; but it is not establishing, and 
scarcely is it trying, the free-church system. To 
retain personal possession of the pew^s in a church, 
and all the appurtenances of church-ownership, 
while saying that the church is glad to have all 



/. 






104 CHURCH-SITTINGS. 

come who choose, is not a fair, adequate, and hon- 
orable experiment of the free-church system ; and 
unlebS the experiment is fairly tried, it is not tried 
at all. To drao- alono; after an idea, is not to test 
its practicability. Gather into your hand all the 
elements, and give it a body and an arena, and 
then it may prove its powers. Let there be dis- 
cussions, deliberations, votes, and whatever legal 
formalities may be necessary to furnish a firm foun- 
dation. If a church is to be formed, or one al- 
ready existing as a monopoly is to be thrown open 
to all, let it be done intelligently. Let its position 
be firs't clearly seen, and then clearly shown, its 
plans and purposes laid before the public, and all 

— families, individuals, transient visitors, residents 

— invited to form, for the time, one church. It is 
true, as has been alleged, that this would bring in 
a great number who would not be the poor and 
devout, but mere curiosity-seekers. But this, so 
far from being an objection, is an inducement. 
Nothing innocent is an objection which brings 
responsible beings into a church. That alone is 
objectionable which keeps them out. If the church 
is what it ought to be, it wiU ignore a man's mo- 
tives in coming. No matter what he came for, 
satisfied that it has him there, let it go to work 
and improve the time. Does the Spirit of God act 
only upon those who decorously pray for him ? Do 
reo;eneration and sanctification come onlv to those 
who deliberately seek them in their careless days ? 



CHURCH-SITTINGS. 105 

Paul had a worse motive than curiosity in going to 
Damascus. He was breathing out threatenings 
and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, but 
suddenly there sliined round about him a light 
from Heaven. The motives which take a man to 
the house of God lie between himself and his 
Maker. The only facts which concern us are by 
any honorable means to get him there, and then 
build him up in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord. If he be worldly, indifferent, attracted only 
by novelty or a name, drifting, unprincipled, so 
much the more is his casual presence in the church 
to be desired. If he will not go from principle, 
how fortunate that he will go from whim ! There, 
truth has him at an advantage, and may hope to 
conquer the evil spirit. The opportunity may 
never come again, but this once you have drawn 
him out of his fortifications. You can force him 
to do battle on your own ground. It may be that, 
in the midst of his carelessness and curiosity, sud- 
denly a light from Heaven shall shine round about 
him. 'And he which converteth a sinner from the 
error of his ways — whether he be a citizen or a 
stranger — saves a soul from death. 

Do you say that this filling of churches with a 
flitting audience will still preclude the poor from 
attendance on the sanctuary ? Fly swiftly round, 
ye wheels of time, and bring the happy day when 
there are not churches enough for the people who 
wish to worship ! 

5* 



106 CHURCH-SITTINGS. 

How terrible would be our daily walks, if our 
streets were filled with the 

" Friendless bodies of unburied men" ! 

How dreadful to go on our errands of business 
or pleasure, if at every step we were forced to 
touch, with shuddering feet, the lifeless taberna- 
cles of departed souls, — stumbHng here against a 
prostrate body, turning aside to avoid another 
there, looking down upon them lying in heaps 
under our parlor windows, and, in spite of every 
effort, brought continually in contact with crum- 
bling clay ! We take good care that this shall not 
happen. We make no question here of wealth 
or poverty. A man may be ever so poor, but 
once let the breath leave his body, and he is im- 
mediately taken care of. Once ceasing to be a 
man, and becoming a thing, church and state 
both come in ; solemn rites are said, prayer and 
psalm and funeral hymn are not wanting. De- 
cently, reverently, — whether the past has known 
the rags of a pauper or the purple of a kilig, — 
the carbon and hydrogen and phosphorus that have 
been honored with the presence of a soul are laid 
back in the bosom of the great mother, — earth to 
earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. 

But a decaying body is not so pernicious as a 
decaying soul. The soul that has lost its principle 
of life, not only passes on to its own destruction, 
but it taints whatever it touches. The souls that 



CHURCH-SITTINGS. 107 

go to and fro in the market-places, nnsanctified, 
unholy, unloving, thinking of no beauty, caring 
for no purity, having no hope and without God in 
the world, — are not only eating away their own 
life, but they are corroding society. An evil soul 
is not only an evil substance, but an evil influ- 
ence. It preys upon itself, and upon all around 
it. It is a missionary, as much more successful 
than ordained evangelists, as the line of its oper- 
ations lies with, and not against, the current. It 
pollutes the earth, and vitiates the air. It is at 
once the nucleus and stimulus of evil. When it 
shall have fled, wailing, from the body which it has 
degraded, you will bestir yourself, giving to the 
suffering slave an attention which you denied to 
the far more deeply suffering master. But why 
can you not open to souls your church, as well as 
to bodies your churchyards ? You will have your 
dead buried out of your sight. Be equally faithful 
to have the sin-smitten soul buried with Christ in 
baptism, to rise with him in newness of life. 

I am loath to leave this subject. I am so sure 
that nothing will come of what I have said. The 
thing which has been is that which shall be. One 
little boat cleaves the ocean-wave, but the ocean 
closes again, and there is no change. Yet I pray 
you do not pass carelessly by. If what I have 
said is not well said, do you say it better. If it 
is not truly said, utter you the truth. If this is 
not a good way to bring the Gospel to the poor. 



108 CHUR CH-SITTINGS. 

show a good way. If it is not the best, show a 
better. It is not a matter that can be let alone 
safely, — either for the world or for yourself. We 
are each his brother's keeper, and we shall sure- 
ly be inquired of one day concerning the trust. 
We can hardly yet render a satisfactory account. 
What I see is church edifices half filled, church 
organizations half torpid, and cities eager and 
crowded ; the Gospel not reaching the tenth part 
of the people, and the people every one of them 
going oiT inexorably into life, going down inevita- 
bly to death. What I want to see is every church 
made the glowing centre of all moral, intellectual, 
and social life ; a city of refuge for all who are in 
any trouble of mind, body, or estate ; a city of re- 
joicing for all who are rich and increased in goods, 
and have need of nothing ; the dread and rebuke 
of unrepentant evil-doers, the counsellor and com- 
forter of repentant ; the dispenser of solace, the 
promoter of joy, the home of the homeless, the 
friend of the friendless ; warm in love, wise in 
action, quick in sympathy, sagacious in council ; 
the house of God, the very gate of heaven. To 
bring about this most Christian end, I know no 
better means than that thou shouldst keep the feast 
unto the Lord thy God with a tribute of a free-wiU 
offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto 
the Lord thy God, according as the Lord thy God 
hath blessed thee ; and thou shalt rejoice before the 
Lord thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, 



CHUR CH-SITTINGS. 



109 



and thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, and 
the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, 
and the fatherless, and the widow that are among 
you, in the place which the Lord thy God hath 
chosen to place his name there. 




A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 




)HEN a new thing is to be introduced 
to the public, machinery must be used. 
A missionary, going to preach Christ 
among a people that never heard of 
him, must probably have recourse to measures 
which he would not need to employ with a nomi- 
nally Christian people. The latter know all that 
it is necessary to know about Christianity. What 
they need is to learn Christianity itself. They 
are to be led to church 'and to religion by the true 
service of the one and the inherent excellence of 
the other. There is very little use in exhorting 
them to go to church, and there is no use at all 
in upbraiding them after they get there for not 
going. The first is like repairing a deranged 
clock by setting the pendulum a-going with your 
finger. It makes a few oscillations and stops, for 
the trouble lies above among the wheels. By 
outside influences you may induce a feeble swing 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. Ill 

between house and church, but you will never 
make a vigorous vibration till you go in among 
the cords and cogs and put the vital mechanism 
in order. Nor is clerical remonstrance any more 
effective tJian lay effort. It is not objectionable 
on the ground of lawfulness, but of expediency. 
I have not an overweening admiration of that 
bland serenity wdiich never speaks a severe word. 
As a freak of nature it is curious and pleasant to 
contemplate, especially where circumstances are 
so arranged that there is no call for severity ; but 
as things usually are, a good plain rebuke, rare 
but thorough, not fringing off into sullenness and 
pouting, but sharp at the edges and solid in the 
middle and w^ell set in sunshine, clears the air 
and accomplishes purposes ; yet in the pulpit it 
does not accomplish the purpose desired, because 
the people who feel it are the people who do not 
deserve it, and because it has not generally a good 
basis. It is not surprising if ministers often feel 
moved to administer it, nor that they often do 
administer it. But it will not effect much, for 
it is not striking at the root of the matter. Lions, 
it is well known, do not write history, and conse- 
quently do not make any great figure in history. 
In our ecclesiastical dramas the congregations 
play the part of the lions, and the clergy are the 
historians. The minister has " centralization," 
the habit of writing and speaking, and the pulpit. 
The congregation is heterogeneous, unorganized, 



112 - A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

unaccustomed to making periods. The minister 
has presented his story very fully, and no doubt 
very truly ; but we have seldom, if ever, been 
called to look at the truth from the " congregation 
side." But why should a minister think himself 
justified in complaining of his small audience, any 
more than a lawyer of his few clients, or a physi- 
cian of his few patients, or a shop-keeper of his 
few patrons ? There may be especial obstacles in 
especial cases, but, as a general thing, if a doctor 
is skilful, people find it out, and employ him. If 
the grocer has good cofiee and spices, he will have 
good customers. But if the minister fails of hear- 
ers, it is because people are cold and dead. Per- 
haps so, but is it not his own hand that killed 
them ? Men want spiritual food much more than 
they want sugar and cofiee ; and if a minister can 
discover and provide the thing which they need, 
why must we suppose that they would not follow 
natural laws and apply to him ? Why are people 
in the one case simply acting after their kind, and 
in the other case giving themselves over to the 
god of this world ? Because the doctor and the 
lawyer have to do with this world's interests, 
while the minister treats only of spiritual things. 
But spiritual things belong to the world as much 
as physical things, nay, more. Godliness is as 
profitable for the life that now is, as for that which 
is to come. Ministers often plant themselves on 
the fact that they preach the Gospel, as if that 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 113 

were the conclusion of the whole matter. Au- 
diences may be small, faith feeble, thermometers 
low, but they preach the Gospel whether men 
will hear or forbear. But it is not the Gospel 
that men go to church to get. They have at 
home as much Gospel as there is. What they 
need in church is to have the Gospel explained, 
applied, enforced. The Gospel may be in a way 
preached without any real explanation, applica- 
tion, or impression. The mere fact that a man 
preaches the Gospel, is not conclusive as to the 
nature of the work which he is doing. Men 
ought to be aroused, stimulated, impelled. Their 
attention must be commanded, if not by duties, 
then by devices. But this is *•' sensation" preach- 
ing. Well, all preaching is sensation preaching. 
You cannot sit still and hear a man talk for 
half an hour or an hour without some kind of a 
sensation. The only question is as to what kind. 
Shall it be a sensation of interest, or indifference ? 
Of resolution, or weariness ? Of repentance, or 
disgust ? There is much unnecessary alarm in 
this respect, — unnecessary, if one looks at it from 
the pews, however it may seem from the pulpit. 
A correspondent of the Congregation alist, in the 
early part of the war, was troubled because a 
daily journal advertised a series of sennons on the 
Military Heroes of the Bible, to be concluded by 
one on " Jesus, the Captain of our Salvation." I 
must confess I cannot see the' smallest objection. 



lU A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

either to preaching the sermons, or announcing 
that you are going to do so. I should think that 
very apt and excellent discourses might be written 
on that theme. There are military heroes in the 
Bible, — witness Abraham, Joshua, David, — and 
there are valuable lessons for us in their career 
and character. At that juncture of affairs, the 
lessons afforded by the military portion of their 
lives were peculiarly apposite. We have Scrip- 
tural authority for calling Christ the Captain of 
our salvation, and the term has now for us a 
stronger meaning than ever before. All military 
character and experience are invested with new 
interest. Why not, then, strike while the iron is 
hot ? I should thmk it was just the thing to do. 
If ministers find that they can induce people to 
come to church by adopting some such " cry," 
they are surely justified in doing it. Would they 
be justified in not doing it ? True, the intelligent, 
devout Christian may not need any such stimu- 
lant, and, if he have a cultivated mind and delicate 
taste, may rather dislike it. But the intelligent, 
devout Christian is not to be taken into the ac- 
count here, because he knows the way to the 
Saviour. He is in the right road, and may be left 
to himself. Christ came not to call the righteous, 
but sinners, to repentance. It is the worldly, the 
careless, the fi'ivolous, the reckless, who need to 
be lured to God ; and if their weakness and wick- 
edness can be touched by catch=words, let us use 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 115 

them. Paul was a thoroughly orthodox and a tol- 
erably able and successful preacher, and he tells 
us his manner of working : " Unto the Jews I 
became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews ; to 
them that are under the law, as under the law, 
that I might gain them that are under the law ; 
to them that are without law, as without law, that 
I might gain them that are without law. To the 
iveak became I as weah^ that I might gain the weak ; 
I am made all things to all men^ that I might hy all 
means save some.^^ " Even as I please all men 
in all things. " If the services of the sanctuary 
are helps to heaven, if men are more likely to be 
led to Christ by going to church than by staying 
away, we can hardly be too eager to gather them 
in ; and to seize our military fever at its height, 
and make it an instrument of moral improvement, 
was a clever stratagem, a tripping of Satan in his 
own net, which should call forth admiration rather 
than censure. And if it is right to do it, it is right 
to say you are going to do it, and to say it in 
the most public manner. It would be very de- 
lightful if everybody belonged to some church, 
and walked in all its ordinances blameless. We 
should then need only the notice from the pulpit, 
and each man would wend his orderly way to his 
own church ; but while there are so many who 
flit from place to place, perhaps to church, per- 
haps to concert, possibly to club, we will not only 
make them a feast of fat things in our church- 



116 A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

es, but we will go out into the highways and 
hedges with our invitations, and compel them to 
come in, that the house may be full. When every 
man has his own plot of ground in Zion, and can 
sit under his own vine and fig-tree, we will all 
stay at home and cultivate our own farms with 
gladness and singleness of heart ; but while the 
sad earth spreads out her waste places, blessed are 
ye that sow beside all waters. 

It is objected, that all this savors of the theatre, 
and conceals the pure word of God with a mere- 
tricious crlow. But it is riffht to learn even of an 
enemy. You may go to a theatre night after 
night, and find it filled with attentive crowds ; 
while in the same city the churches yawn with 
empty pews. May not the secret of this large 
audience and this rapt attention be seized by the 
children of light ? Is there not something in 
the mastery which the actor obtains over the 
assembly — something apart from the nature of 
the entertainment — of which the minister may 
legitimately possess himself, and which, if he be 
wise in his generation, he may use with more than 
an actor's power ? A clergyman of eminent parts 
and position went once into a newsboy's theatre 
for the express purpose of seeing " how it was 
done " ; and, said he, " I learned more about 
preaching there than I ever did at a meeting. I 
was a good deal more insighted into human nature 
when I came out than when I went in." So far 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 117 

as a theatre understands and applies natural laws, 
let our churches be theatrical. 

Yet, "What are we coming to?" ask good 
men despondinglj, in view of such innovations. 
Would that one could reassure them by answering, 
"Nothing in particular." From a lay point of 
view, it seems impossible to believe that the mis- 
chief which hes in this direction is worthy to be 
compared to the mischief which lies in the oppo- 
site direction. The prejudice against "sensation 
preachers " appears much more unreasonable than 
any success which they may have attained. Let 
the " Reverend Graphic " alone. He is doing a 
good work. He that is not against us is on our 
part. The point is to cast out devils. If he suc- 
ceeds in that, let us not forbid him, though he 
followeth not us. There is no man that can cast 
out devils in Christ's name that can lightly speak 
evil of him. Is this a begging of the question ? 
But can it be proved that the Reverend Graphic 
really accomplishes less good than the Reverend 
Prosy ? May be he cannot cast out your partic- 
ular devil ; may be not mine ; but their name is 
Legion, and it shall go hard but some will get a 
wound. What seems rhodomontade in a quiet 
country village, may seem chaste and correct 
discourse in a fast and furious city. What seems 
rough to the cultivated hearer, may be but natu- 
ral to the uncultivated. What would be startling 
and incongruous to you, might only tempt the 



118 A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

palled appetite of another. If an angel from 
heaven preach any other than the true Gospel, 
let him be accursed ; but if he preach the true 
Gospel, let him have firee course, whether he 
preach it with drums beating and colors flying, 
or with the still, small voice. Let all things be 
done decently and in order, and, as far as possible, 
with elegance ; but there are, it may be, so many 
kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is 
without signification. If a little engineering, a lit- 
tle stir, a little show, a little craft (of the Pauline 
kind), a little melodrama tism, can draw men to the 
courts of the Lord, let no one shrink from the sac- 
rifice of his own tastes, if by any means — h^ any 
means — he may save some. What said Paul? 
Some in his day preached Christ even of envy and 
strife, to say nothijig of " sensation " and vain- 
glory ; some of contention, not sincerely, supposing 
to add affliction to his bonds. What then ? Not- 
withstanding, every way, whether in pretence or 
in truth, Christ was preached; "And I therein 
do rejoice," cried the glorious, great-hearted man, 
"yea, and will rejoice." 

The fear of anything unusual, or not conformed 
to the canons of correct taste, sometimes goes so 
far that one might almost think an attractive 
pulpit were presumptive evidence of an heretical 
pulpit. To enliven and adorn it is to depreciate 
it. Men admire, in a minister, agreeable manners, 
a cultivated voice, apt and elegant language, rich 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 119 

and forcible illustration, and are immediately re- 
minded of " one that hath a pleasant voice, and 
can play well on an instrument." How many 
and many times have I heard that quoted by 
clergy and laity, and almost invariably misquoted. 
One would suppose, from its application, that 
God's people in old time turned away from the 
true prophet, who spoke somewhat roughly, to 
listen to the false prophet with the pleasant voice 
and the skilful hand. On the contrary, it was the 
true prophet who spoke sweetly. The Lord said 
unto Ezekiel, " TTiou art unto them as a very 
lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and 
can play well on an instrument.'* Instead of 
making against these accomplishments, it makes 
strongly in their favor. The ma^ whom the Lord 
made a watchman unto the house of Israel went 
out on his errand, not only fired with the zeal of 
the prophet, but clothed with the graces of the 
orator. He ate the roll as he was commanded, 
but it was in his mouth as honey for sweetness. 
True, neither the roll nor the honey turned a 
rebellious people from the error of its ways. Men 
heard the lovely song and the pleasant voice, but 
gave no heed to its teachings. Yet a prophet was 
among them, as they presently came to know. It 
is not to be supposed that in our days, any more 
than in Ezekiel's, a pastor's skill or culture can 
redeem his people. Even though a Paul plant, 
even though an ApoUos water, God must give 



120 A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

tlie increase. But if Paul understands the chem- 
istry of soils, and the natui'e of seeds, if he draws 
a straight fiuTow and holds a steady hand, if he ob- 
serves times and seasons, making hay wlnle the sun 
shines, and mending tools on rauiy days, his fields 
will be much more likely to yield increase, and 
will be far finer to look at when they have in- 
creased, than if he contents himself with scatter- 
ing seed, hit or miss, and pays no regard to con- 
ditions. 

Again, people who are in search of a minister 
recount their fist of requisites, and are met by the 
sarcastic advice to repair to heaven for then' prod- 
igy, or by a disquisition on the unreasonableness 
of people who expect all the gifts and graces for 
eight hundred doJiars a year. But the people are 
not always so unreasonable as is supposed. They 
sometimes make great demands, because they do 
not miderstand what it is that they want. Girls 
talk in heroic verse of the virtues which their 
suitors must possess ; but by and by they marry 
men who are not taller by the breadth of my nail 
than any of their contemporaries, and five happy 
ever after. They have precisely the strength and 
support and companionship which they need, and 
never discover that the superlative quahties which 
they demanded exist in the positive degree, or 
discover it only to make merry over their own 
girlish folly. They are not troubled, because they 
are suited, and that is better than ideal Bayards. 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS 121 

Just so people talk of clerical perfections ; they 
know that they want something which they have 
not, and they get at it as near as they can. But let 
a man go among them, never heeding their fine 
words, but with skill to discern their real needs 
and power to supply them, and their phantom of 
perfection quickly fades away before the face of the 
mere man, who breaks for them, not in word only 
but in truth, the bread of life. He who gives them 
what they need may dispense with many of the 
things they talk about. A very warm friend and 
parishioner of one of the most popular preachers in 
tlie country, admitted that he scarcely ever heard 
a sermon from his pastor in which there was not 
somethino; to offend the taste. But the fire of his 
nature consumed all minor defects. His people 
passed over all the dross, and treasured the fine 
gold. Arbuthnot was a man of pleasing manners 
and agreeable exterior. Abernethy was, in popular 
parlance, "a bear"; but the "lovely song" of the 
one did not turn his science and skill into dllettan- 
teism, nor did the gruff rudeness of the other give 
him in his anterooms one crowd the less. It is 
not true that people are more unreasonable re- 
garding their minister than they are regarding 
other classes of servants. They do not expect 
the village doctor to manage the complicated and 
difficult cases ; but they do expect him to take 
their children comfortably through the mumps and 
measles. They do not go to the " Cheap Cash 

6 



122 A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

Store " for silks and broadcloth, but they expect 
to find tliere good sheeting at a fair price. They 
do not complain if their lawyer is not paid three 
thousand dollars as a retaining fee, but they will 
not long employ him if there are flaws in his title- 
deeds. In point of fact, people bear deficiencies 
in their pastor with far more patience than in any 
other case that I recollect, except, perhaps, that 
of teachers. It is partly because they do not 
know any better. They do not know what a good 
minister or a good teacher is, and might do, and 
they plod on ; but of the fact, I think there can 
be no question. A doctor and a lawyer are much 
more dependent on their professional skill than the 
minister. People do not apply to the former on 
the strength of their being excellent men, genial, 
benevolent, kind-hearted ; but the latter is re- 
tained, respected, and defended against outside 
detractors, on that very plea. 

Attractiveness is not the prerogative of deprav- 
ity. The beauty of holiness is winsome. Very 
few have so distorted their nature by sin as not 
to be able to see the loveliness of religion. Also, 
the word of God is positive, aggressive, radical. 
A minister, then, has to present that which is 
beautiful to a race which, however degraded, has 
still an appreciation of the beautiful, and that 
which is calculated to arouse thought, to a race 
capable of thinking. Besides this, the minister 
has other advantages. He holds the key of all 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 123 

hearts in liis hand. His position allows him, with- 
out the faintest suggestion of impertinence, to 
inquire into the secret hopes, fears, and feelings 
of his people. If he does this with tenderness 
and tact, he will not only not be repulsed, but his 
face will seem to them, as it were, the face of an 
angel. He will bind them to himself by everlast- 
ing cords. In every family circle he will be the 
honored and thrice welcome visitor, the sharer of 
intimate interests, a revered, a confidential, I had 
almost said, a sacred friend. The opportunity is 
before him. Nothing lacks but himself. If he 
have but the innate wisdom, he may fling repub- 
licanism to the winds, and become such an auto- 
crat as never Eastern despot dreamed of being. 
Moreover, he has his pulpit. His people have 
voluntarily made him their leader. They have 
put themselves in the attitude of learners, listen- 
ers, followers. The iron is ready before him ; 
there needs but the arm to smite, strong and sure. 
In country villages he has still other advantages. 
The people have few, if any, concerts, lectures, 
addresses, wherewithal to amuse themselves. 
Books and pictures are scarce, and time to con- 
sult them, limited. The minister, therefore, rep- 
resents other departments as well as his own. He 
is not only Paul, but Cicero and Socrates. He 
is religion, and also literature and the fine arts. 
His people look to him for guidance in most things 
that do not pertain to their own employments. 



124 A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

What liglit, tlien, has a sermon to be dull, or a 
mmlster to lose his audience ? If, with all his 
advantages, he does not command his people, 
whose fault is it ? He maj, indeed, require time. 
It may take months, perhaps years, for his har- 
vest to ripen ; but if, when sun and shower 
have done their work, the seed still remains in 
the ground and there is no fruit, it is possibly not 
wholly the fault of the ground, but of the farmer 
who did not till it aright. 

I think it is aS much a minister's duty to make 
sermons interesting as it is to make sermons. A 
sermon that does not interest an audience is noth- 
ing to them. I do not say that it must please 
them, but it must fix them. If a man cannot do 
that, then, so far as preaching is essential, he 
ought not to be a minister. The truths with 
which he has to deal are the most important in 
the world, and, if he cannot present them forcibly 
enough to secure attention, he should make way 
for some one who can. I am not advocating ex- 
travagance either of word or gesture. Fury and 
pounding and shouting and starting may startle, 
but they excite mere animal attention. You can 
stop a canary-bird's song by hallooing at him. 
One of the ablest ministers I know — a man 
whose church is filled every Sunday — is a quiet 
man. His voice seems not to be raised above the 
tones of common conversation. He stands in 
his pulpit a gentleman, dignified, affable, cour- 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS, 125 

teous. Sometimes his words are roses, and some- 
times tliey are cannon-balls. If roses, they have 
the fragrance of June ; if cannon-balls, they speed 
straight to the mark. In both cases the charac- 
teristic of the attention he secures is not so much 
excitement as fixedness : if this attention depends 
at all upon his manner, it is manner so impalpable 
that you see nothing but the man and the matter 
in their apparently spontaneous expression. 

I hardly know how to say what I wish to say 
in words that shall, on the one hand, do justice to 
the unquestionable importance of the subject, and, 
on the other hand, not do injustice to the real 
excellence against which no word should be 
spoken. It is at the best an ungracious task to 
speak of fault or flaw, and the greater the excel- 
lence in which the flaw is found, the more unwel- 
come the duty of pointing it out. But I am the 
more emboldened to speak, because I am confi- 
dent that, as the people often do wrong ignorantly, 
because they have never been warned by their 
pastor, so the pastor often fails to reach the people 
from the sheer ignorance of the road. Confident 
also that the dearest wish of the pastor is to save 
his people from their sins, I feel sure that many 
will gladly listen to statements which, whatever 
may be their intrinsic worth, have at least the 
value of being honest testimony. 

My testimony is this : so far as the real exigen- 
cies of life are concerned, so far as people get any 



126 A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

help for the week-days from Sunday's sermon, a 
man might just as well have gone up into the pul- 
pit and talked in the Old Frisic through the half- 
hour, as to have preached nine out of ten of all the 
sermons that I ever heard. Thej may be excel- 
lent theological essays, but they are slender helps 
to right living. In truth, I do not see how it is pos- 
sible for men who are alive and in the world, and 
see men and women all around them full of faults, 
full of virtues, full of weaknesses and meannesses 
and capacities and peculiarities, and then have 
a chance to speak, and not say anything about 
it all. How can a living man have free course 
for half an hour, and not come in contact with any 
one either to help or to hurt ? How can a man 
fire into a crowd for half an hour, and hit nobody ? 
It must be that the minister does not stand on the 
same plane with his people. They are congre- 
gated on the earth. He is groping or charging 
among the clouds. Like the soldiers at Bunker 
Hill, he fires over their heads, and, like their offi- 
cer, one feels moved to cry out, " Shin 'em, boys, 
shin 'em ! " The people are groaning and trav- 
aihng in pain, they are bewildered in the laby- 
rinths of life, they are overwhelmed in the tide of 
worldliness and ignorance and selfishness and pas- 
sion, and their minister comes to them with his 
emasculated abstractions. The people crave 
bread, and they get — theology. But scorn the- 
ology, the science of sciences, the central truth ? 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 127 

Nay^ verily. Absorb in your seminaries as much 
science as you can, but do not transmit it to us 
raw science. Assimilate and transmute it into 
the sincere milk of the word, that we may grow 
thereby. What we, the people want, is not the- 
ology theological, but theology vital. We do not 
care for oxygen and nitrogen ; we want air. 

Preach doctrinal sermons, not skeletons, but 
living organisms, clothed with nerve and sinew 
and muscle. Preach practical sermons, but let 
them smell of the soil. There is no gulf between 
the two. Doctrine and practice are not two 
things, but two parts of the same thing, — root 
and fruit of one tree. There is no doctrine that 
has not man's welfare for its end ; there is no 
practice that bears on any other object. Juice 
will not be found in the doctrinal sermons of him 
whose practical sermons are sapless. How did 
Christ preach the Gospel ? He forbade family 
quarrels. He warned his hearers against the evil 
practices of the Scribes and Pharisees. He bade 
no one dare to come up to the temple to worship 
until he had paid his just debts. He not only 
enjoined upon them not to commit adultery, but 
told them what the first step in adultery was, that 
they might shun it. He talked to them about 
their families, and their lawsuits, and their habit 
of borrowing. He told them how they should 
accost people in the street ; what they should give 
away and how they should give it ; how they 



128 A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

should pray and how they should keep fast-day. 
He told them just how religion bore upon their 
business and their associations. He bade them 
not to backbite or slander. He warned them 
against preachers who came preaching false doc- 
trine. Common things he discussed in common 
language, enlivening his discourse with pungent 
questioning, illustrating it by numerous stories, 
and garnishing it with vivid and beautiftil pictures 
drawn from the summer fields and humble homes 
around him. Throuo[;h it all rans; the tender un- 
dertone of love, — pity for the suffering, strength 
for the weak, trust and comfort for the poor. 
O, no wonder the people were astonished at his 
doctrines, and that when he came down from the 
mountain great multitudes followed him ! A writ- 
er in the Congregationalist says that a clergyman 
once preached on the text, " Thou shalt not 
steal," and on Monday morning the streets were 
full of people carrying home books and tools 
which they had borrowed. As soon as they were 
told what to do, they did it. But so rare is it to 
hear a sermon that gives one any definite thing to 
do, or points out any special fault to correct, that an 
audience sometimes looks with something like sus- 
picion on such a sermon when it does come. They 
do not exactly know what to make of it. They 
are not quite sure it is religion at all, but rather 
think it is morality; and, as Unitarians are sup- 
posed to be given over to morality, the minister 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 129 

needs to have years and experience, or his creed 
may be called in question. Ministers have so 
narrowed the prerogatives of the Gospel that the 
people do not know how broad is its domain. The 
pastor is the educator of his people. Not only their 
religion, but their morals, their manners, their 
habits, their politics, are his province. Whatever 
may be the impression to the contrary, they will 
not be restive under his rule if he but hold the 
sceptre wisely. If he but have moral strength, he 
will surely have moral force. Trouble is the re- 
sult of undue assumption. Position will not give 
him force, but it will do much to utilize it. Sug- 
gestions and inculcations that would be resented 
from a layman are received respectfully from a 
clergyman. What would be meddlesome inter- 
ference in the former, is duty in the latter ; and if 
the duty be deftly done, people will recognize it. 
If a man takes hold of his work by the blade in- 
stead of by the handle, he must expect to cut his 
fingers, and if he was born blind and cannot tell 
which is which, he ought not to choose an occupa- 
tion that requires edge-tools. 

I know a man who, in the midst of a communi- 
ty hostile to his views, preaches to a church many 
of whose members are his political opponents. 
He lays down his principles in plain terms, and 
inculcates them with great earnestness, yet with 
so much grace, tact, and courtesy that even those 
whose convictions do not yield to his ai-gnments 

6* 1 



130 A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

have a profound respect for his character, and a 
warm affection for himself. Undoubtedly a peo- 
ple may become, by a long course of false or fee- 
ble teaching, so depraved that they will not bear 
the true light ; but surely the greater part of 
the churches of New England, in the nineteenth 
century, will bear all the light which a minister 
can throw upon them. And at the worst, it is 
better to be thrust out of the synagogue for speak- 
ing the truth, than to keep one's place within by 
suppressing it. 

This tact is no less necessary to the minister 
out of the pulpit than in it. The position of a 
minister has a tendency to isolate him, in a meas- 
ure, from lay humanity. M. Robert Haudin tells 
us, that dipping his hands into water enabled him 
to plunge them, without injury, into masses of 
molten metal. The water changes into a vapor, 
wliich interposes between the skin and the fiery 
mass, and there is no real contact. So we have 
seen ministers walking about among their people ; 
life throbs and glows and seethes and rages around 
them, but they are enveloped in an impalpable, 
professional atmosphere of their own creating. 
They hear the dash of the waves ; they see un- 
happy souls struggling in their pitiless embrace, 
and O how gladly, how eagerly would they reach 
out a hand to save ! but the impalpable atmos- 
phere rolls between, and they cannot come nigh 
them. 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 131 

It is not so in other professions. The lawyer 
must possess himself of the facts of the case before 
he undertakes its charge; or the reputation and 
purse, both of himself and his client, will be en- 
dangered. The doctor must know the symptoms, 
the delicate sensations, the sharp pains and the 
dull aches of his case, or his prescriptions are at 
fault, and his patient dies out of his hands. Client 
and patient are well aware of this, and need little 
coaxing to unburden themselves of facts and feel- 
ings. But that part of a man which comes under 
the minister's jurisdiction is neither purse nor 
pulse ; it is only the soul, — the immortal princi- 
ple which underlies, overtops, and permeates this 
life, and all future life ; and men are chary of it. 
Partly from indiiference, the result of wilful short- 
sightedness and ignorance ; partly from a natural 
timidity and disinclination to bring to light the 
hidden things of the heart ; partly from actual 
inability to embody shadowy, half-defined, and not 
half-understood ideas in words, — men are back- 
ward in revealing the symptoms of their diseased 
souls to him who would gladly help them to a cure. 
The spiritual physician must feel his way along. 
He must walk by sympathy, not by sight or sound. 
He needs a sixth sense to interpret to his heart 
what his eyes and ears have brought to his brain. 
He must not content himself with takincr a bird's- 
eye view of the surface of things ; he must drop 
his line into the deeps and shallows to find out 



132 A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

whitlier the currents tend, where the undertow 
lurks, and where the eddies play. He must be on 
the alert to find out what those influences are 
which make the cheek flush and the heart throb ; 
and having found them, he must know when to use 
them, and when to refrain from using them. He 
should study to insert the right word in the right 
place ; to have the power of putting himself, in a 
moment, in the position of the person whom he 
wishes to benefit. In fact, I consider this power 
indispensable in a minister. If he has it not, he 
has mistaken his calling. It is not possible to be a 
good pastor, and I do not believe it is possible to 
be a good preacher, without it. A man may write 
disquisitions, full of sound doctrine, right reasoning, 
careful learning, instructive to the reader, and per- 
haps also to the hearer,' valuable contributions to 
the ecclesiastical literature of his age ; but he can- 
not thrill along the heart-strings of his people one 
day in the week, if he rides over them rough-shod 
the six remaining days. 

To illustrate, in part, what I mean : I once 
knew a minister — one of the excellent of the earth, 
humble, devoted, and untiring, willing to spend 
and be spent in the service of the Lord — who 
used to strike out after this fashion. He would 
make a call; have the whole family assembled, 
from the father down to the little girl nine years 
old, and, beginning at the head, pounce upon each 
in turn, put to them individually the most point- 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 133 

blank questions, express to them in a most decided 
manner, and with the utmost freedom, his opinion 
of their character and prospects, give a little 
wholesale advise, pointed with a warning, finish 
off with a prayer, then mount his horse and ride 
away. But can any man of common sense sup- 
pose that it will do any good to talk to a father of 
his sins in the listening presence of three or four 
half-grown up children ? If a man is beginning to 
think upon his w^ays, if he has compunctions of 
conscience, if he has doubts or fears or hopes 
which his pastor's hand may do much to remove 
or strengthen, is this a good opportunity to bring 
them forward ? Will he be likely to converse 
freely, — to show the wounded place whereon the 
balm of Gilead should be laid ? Will a sensitive, 
shrinking, timid girl be disposed to lay bare her 
secret heart in the presence of her merry, romp- 
ing, careless brothers ? Will she unveil to half a 
dozen pairs of eyes, the hidden thoughts which are 
scarcely revealed to her own ? How can a minis- 
ter be so blind, so ignorant of human nature, as to 
expect to accomplish anything in this way ? 

I know another case, where a girl of sixteen 
w^as propounded for admission to the church. Her 
pastor visited her a few days before the appointed 
Sabbath. Several members of her own family and 
several visitors were assembled in the parlor. The 
talk was li^iht and discursive. He sat on one 
side of the room, she on the other. Presently 



134 A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

there came a lull in the conversation, of which he 
took advantao^e. Turning; to her he began , in that 

o o o ' 

peculiar tone which, if never heard, cannot be 
imagined, and, if once heard, need never be de- 
scribed, " You are about to take a very important 
step." 

Of course, this remark, being dropped suddenly 
into the current of conversation, had the effect of 
a breakwater. Everything w^as in confusion for 
a moment. The visitors did not know what it 
meant. The family, who did, could not, in polite- 
ness, rush to the rescue, while the silent victim 
certainly did not look as if she were capable of tak- 
ing any step at all. 

Now this good man, and many other good men, 
would not " needlessly set foot upon a worm," yet 
day after day they walk, all unconsciously, over 
quivering nerves. 

Ministers are apt to forget that, to every heart, 
its own experiences are new and fresh. They 
know that as in water face answereth to face, so 
doth the heart of man to man. They have seen 
the same doubts agitating, the same fears terrify- 
ing, the same contradictions perplexing, the same 
hopes dawning, the same promises comforting, the 
same faith glowing, for ten, twenty, thirty years. 
They have acquired a professional familiarity with 
spiritual phenomena, and they forget that these are 
inwoven with the innermost life of individuals, -^ 
that to bring them suddenly into the day is exqui- 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS, 135 

site torture. It is true that the two-edged sword 
of Divine truth does sometimes cleave its way 
down into the heart so deep, so unerring, that the 
stricken soul seems for a time to lose consciousness 
of all external things, and cries aloud, " Lord, save 
or I perish ! " The world recedes ! The sinner 
stands face to face with his sin, and it is too dread- 
ful for him ! In such a case, circumstances are 
little heeded. But oftener the Spirit descends 
gently, like the dew of Hermon, softening the 
parched soil and preparing it for heavenly seed. 
Then, whoever would work in this garden of the 
Lord should have a skilful hand, a delicate touch. 
Without it, he breaks the bruised reed. He 
wounds when he sought only to heal. He meets 
silence and apparent coldness, where he would fain 
find warmth and confidence. He marvels that the 
ways of Zion mourn, that few come to her solemn 
feasts. 

But do not always think, 

" Because the song hath ceased, 
The soul of song hath fled." 

True, the harp is still ; and it may be because 
music has died out of its chords ; — but may it not 
also be because your untutored fingers have no 
power to wake its tone ? 

Again ; what weapons do ministers furnish their 
young people against infidelity ? How many of 
their church-members are ready to give a satisfac- 
tory answer to the Cappadocians and Bithynians 



136 A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

who might ask them a reason of the hope that is 
in them ? How many women who have grown 
■up in a Christian congregation can show any but 
the most superficial cause why they are Congrega- 
tionahsts and not Episcopahans ? How many men 
can tell where truth and falsehood meet in " Es- 
says and Reviews," or Renan's " Life of Jesus " ? 
Essays and Reviews ? I should be glad if boys 
and girls generally could repeat the Ten Com- 
mandments in order, or know what part of the Bi- 
ble is prose and what is poetry. Do you say that 
belongs to parents ? Say it to the parents, then. 
Sermons are preached to fathers and mothers, in 
which they are admonished to bring up their chil- 
dren in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; 
but from which a young mother could not gather 
a single hint to guide her in managing her baby. 
It is the eager desire of parents to do that very 
thing, and they would gladly welcome instruction; 
but to be good for anything, it must be definite. 
It must be like, in kind, to certain papers on tHat 
topic by the Rev. John Todd, printed in the Con- 
gregationalist. You may not agree with every- 
thing he says, but the man who sets one thinking 
and observing for one's self, is more helpful than 
he who never excites thouo-ht enough for ao;ree- 

o o o 

ment or disagreement. 

I spoke of " Essays and Reviews." They are a 
foreign growth, but they scatter seed, and there is 
plenty of ground ready to receive it. It will surely 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 137 

spring up, and bear fruit, unless supplanted by a 
better crop. " Spiritualism " sprang from our own 
soil, and grew up like Jonah's gourd. For a time, 
scarcely a community existed in which some un- 
easy table could not be found. I have heard a 
doctor of divinity, in preaching against it, use 
arguments which seemed to satisfy himself, and 
which perhaps might satisfy any one who knew 
nothing about the matter, but which a man, who 
had given a particle of honest attention to real oc- 
currences, might sweep away with one pen-stroke. 
The absurdity of the refutation was only equalled 
by the absurdity of the thing refuted. I do not 
say the great mass of sermons, but a great mass 
of sermons, are like the bodies of which we some- 
times read, which, exhumed after having been a 
long time dead, preserve the form and fulness of 
life, but, brought out into the light of day and 
touched by vital air, crumble at once into ashes 
and nothingness. It is better not to touch these 
things than to touch them weakly : but men need 
to be clad in the whole armor of God. 

Besides the quality of preaching, there is surely 
an abundant room for improvement in the man- 
ner. The number of good readers, good elocu- 
tionists, good orators, among ministers, is surpris- 
ingly small. Not only are the young men, fresh 
from theological schools, in a crude state, but the 
strong probabihty is, that they will never ripen. 
They may grow in grace and in the knowledge of 



138 A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Their views 
may broaden, their sympathies deepen. Their 
certainties may waver into hypotheses, and their 
doubts change into belief. They may grow char- 
itable, tolerant, catholic, genial. And they may 
not ; for there are those who, if they deepen at all, 
deepen only in the one rut wherein they started, — 
men whose weaknesses and errors time petrifies 
instead of removing. But, often, while the man 
and the minister goes on from strength to strength, 
the orator preserves a masterly inactivity. He 
does not purpose to do otherwise. Some, as I have 
intimated, frown down any attempt to adorn and 
beautify their oratory. They call it extolling the 
little at the expense of the great. It is toying, 
trifling, frivolity. It is frittering away on shadows 
what should be spent on substance. So they scorn 
" rhetoric.'* Grace of style, smoothness of diction, 
correctness of pronunciation, beauty of modulation, 
sweetness of voice, ease of manner, appropriate- 
ness of gesture, — what are these where souls are 
to be saved ? It is Unitarlanism. It is Lyceum- 
izing the Church. Your Orthodox minister is not 
going to be caught, nor to catch you, by such 
chaif. He proclaims from his pulpit that he does 
not expect or endeavor to charm you by elo- 
quence. He does not aim to be "popular." He 
does not seek to please you by figures of speech 
and poetical periods and smooth doctrine. Let 
others cater to your tastes : he gives you the 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 139 

word of God. If you do not like his preaching, 
it is because your natural heart revolts against the 
unadulterated Gospel ; it is because you want to 
be amused and entertained, rather than warned 
and instructed. 

But, while righteousness, temperance, and judg- 
ment to come are not to be abandoned on account 
of any reluctance to accept thean, or any prefer- 
ence for somethino; else, there are other things 
which ought not to be neglected. These things 
ought ye to have done, and not to have left the 
others 'undone. Anything that attracts men ought 
not to be considered unworthy of the minister's 
notice. If certain qualities will induce men to 
listen to the truth, he ought to cultivate such qual- 
ities, if by any means he may save some. He 
should be content with nothing lower than the 
highest. If men, for the sake of gaining the 
applause of their fellows, will labor to make them- 
selves attractive, shall not he, so much the more, 
for the sake of gaining souls ? Let it be remem- 
bered, that to be popular is not to be shallow, that 
to be interesting is not to be weak, that to be 
nice is not to be finical, that rhetoric is not incom- 
patible with religion. If a man has a message 
from God, let him not fear to clothe it in language 
too beautiful, or to present it in a manner too win- 
ning. Let him not disguise it, and make it repul- 
sive. The Gospel is sometimes presented so un- 
couthly or so indifferently or so unfeelingly that 



140 A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

men are repelled rather than drawn ; and the 
minister who repels them will talk of the opposi- 
tion of the natural heart, and sincerely believe that 
it is his plainness of speech, his fearless utterance 
of the truth, or fearless rebuke of sin, that is dis- 
tasteful. It is w^ell for a minister to be so simple 
that the most ignorant can understand him, so 
well educated that the most learned can respect 
him, so refined that the most fastidious need not 
be offended. It is not required that he shall know 
more about everything than any one else ; but he 
ought either to be great in his owm line, or respect- 
able in all. If a geologist know^s more about 
geology than any other man livmg, he will have 
the respect of the community, even if he is not 
well versed in literature ; but if he is only a me- 
diocre geologist, he needs to have a good deal of 
other knowledge to keep him afloat. Just so with 
ministers. Very few are so great in their special 
department that they can afford to be small in 
others. Very few wield a logic so powerful that 
rhetoric can give no further strength. Genius 
itself is improved by culture, but ordinary endow- 
ments are nothing without it. Everything that 
might increase influence should receive close atten- 
tion, not to the neglect, but to the greater effect- 
iveness, of weightier matters. 

Many a sermon, which evidently might do good, 
is spoiled by being badly delivered. Words are 
mumbled. Sentences are hurried throug^h. Em- 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 141 

pliasis is set at defiance. Our finest hymns are 
ruthlessly murdered. Some hymns are bad enough 
of themselves, but good and bad are ground in the 
same mill, and come out alike, sheer doggerel. 
We shall not soon forget the impression produced 
by such a reading of the line 

" Faith, set upon a world to come." 

Instead of making a slight pause after " Faith," as 
the sense required, and bringing out the true idea 
of Faith, with steadfast eye fixed upon a future 
world, ijie minister rather scanned the verse, bring- 
ing the pause after "upon" and the emphasis 
upon it, thus : 

" Faith set upon — a-world to come," 

as if faith were a hare set upon by a pack of 
hounds. It really needed reflection to select the 
real meaning from the possible ones into which 
the barbarous accents of this excellent man had 
translated it. 

It is rather worse to disfigure hymns in this 
way than sermons. The sermon is a man's own, 
and his own reputation alone suffers ; but the au- 
thor of the unfortunate hymn is dead, or absent, 
and cannot help himself. On the other hand, 
however, the sermon is to instruct, admonish, and 
enlighten the people ; and if, by carelessness or 
wilfulness, it is badly written or badly spoken, it is 
not the man's reputation alone that suffers, but the 
welfare of the people, wdiich is of infinitely more 



142 A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

importance. The most excellent way is for a man 
to learn to read before he begins to preach, — then 
he can read anything. If, unfortunately, he has 
already begun to preach without knowing how to 
read, " it is never too late to mend." 

A great many sermons are preached in ahfeless, 
professional tone, as if the minister were preach- 
ing because it is his business, not because he has 
something to say. He receives so much money, 
and gives so much sermon in return. For value 
received he promises to pay, and he is paying, — 
like the honest man he is. He does not love you, 
his hearer, but he does not hate you ; in fact, he 
is not thinking about you at all. He is not think- 
ing about anything in particular. He has nothing 
in view. He has written a sermon, and is there to 
preach it ; the rest is none of his business. If you 
listen to it, or like it, or do not, it is all one to him. 
Ministers may not often feel so ; but it often looks 
as if they did. There is no mark by which you 
shall judge that they heartily believe what they 
are saying, or heartily wish you to believe it, or 
think it to be of paramount importance that you 
should believe it, or that their hearts are in the 
thing at all. If this is not a fault, it is a great 
misfortune. A man must be himself, but he may 
make improvements. He cannot change, but he 
can work up his raw material. Some naturally 
have more action and animation than others ; but 
if ministers asked women to marry them with no 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 143 

more apparent earnestness than many of them 
preach the Gospel, priestly celibacy would not be 
a peculiarity of the Romish Church. Action need 
not be violent or vulgar, and quietude need not 
become monotonous and tiresome. 

Some ministers are so unfortunate as to have 
contracted an indignant, vituperative way of 
preaching. They launch the denunciations of 
the Gospel at our heads with an air that seems to 
say, " Good enough for you ! " They look upon 
gentle words, winning persuasions, encouragement, 
and consolation askant, as " smooth doctrine." 
Objurgation is their forte. Fire and brimstone are 
more available with them than the milk and honey 
of the promised land. It is a thousand pities. 
Nothing hardens people like continued fault-find- 
ing. If their minister always rebukes them for sin 
as if he were angry with them, they will be flinty 
to his touch ; but if they see his heart melting with 
compassion and sorrow and tenderness for them, 
even while he abhors their sin, there is not one 
in twenty that can withstand it. 

I wish, too, our clergymen would look a little 
more carefully to their language and pronuncia- 
tion. In tliese things they should be an ensample 
to their flock. " If gold ruste, what shuld iren 
do ? " Yet they often help to vitiate rather than 
preserve or purify the good old well of English 
undefiled. How often is " tauo;ht him " trans- 
Termed and deformed into " tauo-ht 'im." " And 



144 



A VIEW FROM THE P^WS. 



yet" does duty as " an' jit." " Made use of" 
would hardly be recognized if spelt as it is sound- 
ed, — " may juice of." *' Blessed union " is flat- 
tened out into " blessy junion." How many min- 
isters are there who, at first sight, will correctly 
pronounce 

Invariable, Treasure, 

Occasionally, Measure, 
Superintend, Vital, 
Innumerable, Testimony, 
Extraordinary, Consumed, 

words which I have far 

nounced than pronounced in the pulpit. How 

can we go right, If our leaders do not lead in the 



Hope, 


Therefore, 


Whole, 


Often, 


Coat, 


Rise, (noun,) 


Soon, 


Humor, 


Worldly, 


View,— 


oftener 


heard mispro- 



ricfht 



way 



Was an Orthodox minister ever known to use the 
word '' wife " in the pulpit ? From the manner in 
which he steers around it, one might suppose that 
its utterance was under a ban. Your *' consort," 
" companion," the " partner of your joys," or 
*' sorrows," or " bosom," is recognized, but nobody 
ever prays for your " wife." Why is it not just 
as well to say that Mr. A. will preach In the after- 
noon^ as in the " after part of the day " ? Why 
not say that the man whose life you are sketching 
was married at such an age, rather than that he 
" entered into the married relation " ? Why shall 
we not hear In the pulpit our own tongue in which 
we were born ? If dignity cannot stand Anglo- 
Saxon, so much the worse for dignity. Good, 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 145 

simple, common, honest, racy, idiomatic words and 
phrases are not only the strongest, but often the 
most eloquent. The cumbrous euphuisms of a 
pulpit patois are neither pleasant to the taste, nor 
good for food. Doubtless many sermons which 
seem dry would be found to be really succulent 
if they could only be translated (though others, 
indeed, might suffer from such a process) ; but they 
are given in a language and in tones which no one 
ever hears at his table, or in his parlor, or in a rail- 
way car ; and it is difficult to believe that a person 
who has anything to say would talk in such a fash- 
ion. Paul was as argumentative, as abstract, as 
learned, as theological, as anyone need be, but his 
words were concrete and cleaving. I do not al- 
ways understand him, but I feel confident that he 
understood himself. The line of his arguments 
sometimes seems to run zigzag, but you can see 
that he is in deadly earnest. He was so interested 
that he became interesting. Sympathy makes up 
for sense. Through all these eighteen hundred 
years his dead lips speak with a fire and fervor, 
his silent voice rings out with a clearness and 
power, that many a living voice and living lips 
do not attain. 

It is a mistake to suppose that sermons on every- 
day life in every-day language require less study 
and thought than others. They require more. 
When you come down to matters which every one 
touches at some point, every one is plaintiff, de- 
7 J 



146 A VIEW FROM THE PEWS, 

fendant, advocate, and judge. A clergyman can 
write the learned lore of the schoolmen, and we 
are so little interested and know so little what he 
is aiming at, that he has things pretty much his 
own way. A man may build us a pantheon or a 
pagoda, and we cannot swear that it is not the one 
nor the other. But if he undertakes to build us a 
house to live in, we shall know whether he suc- 
ceeds, and he must hit the nail on the head, 
or he will bruise his hands, besides driving the 
nail awry. Nor does the use of common lan- 
guage mean the use of vulgar language. Collo- 
quialisms sometimes will illustrate truth, but they 
should be used only in a state of fusion. To go 
out of one's way to use them, is to abuse them. 
Vulgarity is always inadmissible. No fancied 
benefit can atone for the employment of such 
words and phrases as " scamp," " turn up your 
nose," etc., which I have heard used in Orthodox 
pulpits. A minister should be the last to coun- 
tenance terms which are unbecoming in a gen- 
tleman. 

Do these things seem trivial ? But God, in or- 
daining his priesthood, would not be ministered 
unto by a man who had a flat nose. How much 
less shall one serve in his sanctuary with unclean 
lips ! 

I am afraid that I may seem to be making out 
the people to be a kind of injured innocent, and 
the pastor an ogre preying upon it. Not so. The 



A VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 147 

people have faults and to spare. With the wisest 
manipulation, there will doubtless always be some 
fault. But a people is not all fault. That is 
the point I wish to bring into prominence. If I 
have made it too prominent, it will only balance 
undue depression, and the average altitude will 
not be far w^ong. 

It may be said, also. Why seek to bring people 
to church, if church services are so deficient ? 
Why ? Because half a loaf is better than no 
bread. Because God commands us not to forsake 
the assembling of ourselves together. Because 
experience shows that a community without a 
church is very likely to become a community 
without God. Because you always expect a 
church-going people to be more respectable, vir- 
tuous, and benevolent than one that is not, and 
you are seldom disappointed. But when you look 
at the other side, so appalling is the extent of 
practical heathendom, so shallow is the depth 
of practical Christianity, that it almost seems as 
if everything still remains to be done. We are 
as good as we are, because our ministers are so 
good ; we are as bad as we are, because they 
are no better. Like people, hke priest. A people 
must be as low as its lowest; it can be no higher 
than its highest. 

I have not drawn any fanciful picture of paro- 
chial bliss. It is from ministers themselves that I 
have learned what ministers may be. It is in the 



148 ^- VIEW FROM THE PEWS. 

light of the pulpit that pulpit shadows deepen. If 
I had not known the influence which ministers 
may exert over people, if I had not known the 
love and respect which people may feel towards 
ministers, I should not have dreamed what that 
influence and that deference may be. I have 
mentioned no defect which has not fallen under 
my own observation. I have painted no grace 
"which is not from the life. If the standard is set 
too high, it is not my hand that bore it. I have 
but pointed to its folds, floating far up in the clear, 
pure air, not without a hope that the sight may do 
somewhat towards inspiring the fervent battle-cry, 
" Forward ! All forward ! " 




VI. 



•PRAYER-MEETINGS. 




HEN they that feared the Lord spake 
often one to another, and the Lord 
hearkened and heard it." But if the 
i% Lord hearkens to everything that is 
said at our prayer-meetings, and if, beneath the 
words, he discovers the underlying motive and 
feeling, I sometimes fear that his book of remem- 
brance will receive its largest accession of names 
from other quarters. 

Prayer-meetings, — meetings for prayer, — yet 
how little real praying, — for that matter, how 
little praying of any kind. By way of illustration, 
let me mention one instance. At the instig-ation 
of certain missionaries, a prayer-meeting was to be 
held a short time ago, for several nights in suc- 
cession, simultaneously throughout Christendom. 
At one of these meetings, which lasted three 
hours, there were two, possibly three prayers ; 
not more. The rest of the time was consumed 



150 PRAYER-MEETINGS, 

in talking. It was said that no one was to oc- 
cupy more than ten minutes. When a man has 
but ten minutes to talk, it is obvious he oucrht to 
talk fast and concisely, and not waste time in apol- 
ogies, — if he has anything to say ; if he has not, 
he ought not to speak at all. The first speaker at 
this meeting was at least five minutes in really 
beginning, and then he became so entangled 
in his metaphors and similes, that he did not 
clear himself for half an hour. In a parlor, this 
would have been a gross impertinence. What 
was it in a chapel ? No matter how well he might 
have talked, no matter if he had spoken with the 
tongues of men and of angels, every well-bred per- 
son must have felt that he was thrusting himself 
in where he did not belong, that he was occupying 
time which was due to other people. The second 
man, who had evidently been "reading up " for the 
occasion, brought out, for another half-hour, the 
biography of two good men, whose memoirs are 
in every one's hands, and if they were not, there 
was no appropriateness in supplying the deficiency 
on such an occasion. A third occupied himself 
in mourning over the low state of piety in the 
Church. And so it went on for three hours, — a 
prayer-meeting for the conversion of the heathen, 
and not one tenth of the time devoted to praying, 
and the heathen left out altogether. Many Chris- 
tian hearts may have been edified, but it certainly 
seems to me that the world can be converted in a 
far more economical way than that. 



PR A YER-MEE TINGS. 151 

This was, perhaps, an extreme case, but is it 
exceptional to have a prayer-meeting made the 
vehicle of crude reflection, shallow emotion, su- 
perficial experience, monotonous exhortations, vain 
babbhngs, — much of self, little of God, — much 
of vain repetition, little of soul- wrestling, — too 
much of the Pharisee in the temple, too httle of 
Jacob at Penuel ? 

Would it not be well if church-members, in- 
stead of lamenting that the ways of Zion mourn, 
and few come to her solemn feasts, would seriously 
set themselves to inquiring whether the feasts 
are worth coming to. If, when we invite people 
to a feast of fat things full of marrow, of wines on 
the lees well refined, we furnish forth our tables 
with dry bones and brackish water, ought we to 
complain if they are shy of accepting our hospi- 
tality ? Were a man ever so fond of bread, he 
would hardly relish a meal of stones ; how much 
less when his appetite has become so vitiated that 
he has lost his desire for the bread of life, and 
needs to be lured by all innocent devices ! 

It is not the want of cultivation and education 
that makes the empty benches at our prayer- 
meetings. True, there are solecisms, rhetorical 
redundancies, awkwardness of posture, and un- 
couthness of gesture, which are not sweet to 
eye or ear ; nor am I of the number who believe 
it sacrilege to take exception to anything that 
occurs in religious meetings. The ark was holy 



152 PRAYER-MEETINGS. 

nnto the Lord, so that Uzzah, putting forth a 
presumptuous hand to it, was smitten for his error 
and died ; but the ark went up from Kirjath-jearim 
in an ox-cart. 

So long as men are influenced by extraneous 
things, we ought to make extraneous things ap- 
propriate. Our best is not too good for the Lord's 
service. He does not want the poor and the lame 
and the sick for an offering, but the firstlings of 
the flock, without spot or blemish. The old 
woman's principle was correct, though we may 
perhaps demur at her apphcation of it, when she 
poured the contents of her molasses jug into hei 
terrified pastor's tea-cup, with the affectionate dec- 
laration, " can't be too sweet for the minister ! " It 
is absurd to suppose that, because a man is religious, 
he need not be intelligent, — that piety is to be a 
shield for ignorance, — that any kind of grammar 
will do for a prayer. Of course it is better to 
pray blunderingly than not to pray at all ; but 
better than either is it to pray without blunders. 
This world's language, in its most cultivated state, 
is not too good for the courts of heaven. 

I make these remarks, first, because there are 
men who seem rather to glory in their ignorance, 
who speak of their want of " book-learning " as 
a praiseworthy thing, who boast that they have 
none of the graces of oratory, and who go on 
hammering out their disconnected sentences with a 
self-complacence at once ridiculous and disgusting. 



PRAYER-MEETINGS. 153 

Of all forms of pride, this is the most intolerable. 
Pride of birth, pride of wealth, pride of beauty, 
have some excuse in the intrinsic value of the 
thing possessed ; but pride of ignorance and stu- 
pidity and vulgarity has no shadow of palliation. 
An ignorant man unconscious of his ip;norance is 
a pitiable object. An ignorant man conscious of 
his ignorance, striving every day to remove it, and 
modest in the consciousness, commands not only 
sympathy, but respect. An ignorant man, glory- 
ing in his ignorance, is a nuisance that ought to 
be abated. We admire sense and energy and 
worth that have struggled up to prominence and 
influence, though the garment be coarse and the 
dialect harsh ; but it is not the coarseness and 
harshness that we respect, but the manhood that 
we discern in spite of them. Much as we value 
the man with them, we should value him still 
more without them. The energy that quarried 
the marble was wonderful ; if it could have pol- 
ished it too, it would have been still more won- 
derful ; but it would be ineffable stupidity for a 
rickety beer-cask to waddle up beside the marble 
shaft, and claim fellowship on the score of a 
common ugliness. A diamond in the rough is a 
treasure for a king's ransom ; but the rough 
without the diamond is mere rubbish ; and even 
the diamond must be cut into brilliancy before it 
is worthy to be set in the king's diadem. 

Above all things, let us not bring our ignorance 
7# 



154 PRAYER-MEETINGS. 

as a sacrifice unto the Lord, well pleasing. No 
thought can be too beautiful, no language too 
chaste, for his service. When we speak directly 
to him, his glory often overshadows us so that we 
can only bow our heads in reverence, and humbly 
say, " Lord be merciful to me a sinner " ; and 
even when we look away from him, and would 
fain speak of his excellences, his grandeur, and 
might, and majesty, his loving-kindness and ten- 
der mercy beam upon us with such refulgence 
that we can only exclaim, " The Lord, he is the 
God ; the Lord, he is the God." But when 
^ve are moved to speech, earth and sea and sky 
can furnish nothing too rare and precious to 
adorn it. 

The ark went up in an ox-cart ; but it was no 
battered, disjointed, rattling vehicle. It was a 
'' new cart." Christ rode into Jerusalem on an 
ass, but it was a fresh young animal, whereon 
never man sat. Let us take to God the strongest 
and the fairest and the best, and continually strive 
to make the best better. 

I have said thus much, secondly, because so 
many draw a line around all religious services, 
and consider everything withki it as without the 
pale of legitimate criticism ; but when one speaks 
of a wicked man digging a ditch, which shall 
fall on his own head, can one help reflecting 
what a remarkable ditch it must be, even if it 
was found in a prayer ? When a man uses the 



PR A YER-MEETINGS. 155 

same verb fifteen times in three minutes, can one 
help wishing he would leave it out twelve or thir- 
teen times ? But if you should say so, you have, 
doubtless, many excellent friends, who would 
look upon you with a kind of holy horror, as a 
modified species of heathen. There are men 
who seem to think it irreverent to address the 
Deity in natural tones, and pitch their voices in 
prayer on a most unearthly key. There are 
others who seem to lose their breath in pronoun- 
cing the name of the Lord ; but these things must 
never be noticed. Everything that happens " in 
meeting " must be taken without wincing. This 
seems to me unwise and uncandid, — uncandid, 
because little absurdities do occur ; why should 
we not frankly admit it ? Is not our religion 
strong enough to bear it ? Unwise, because it helps 
men cherish little foibles, which hinder their use- 
fulness, which they ought to get rid of, and which 
a very little kindness in others, and pains on their 
own part, would enable them to remove. We 
have the treasure in earthen vessels, and earthen 
vessels are liable to mould in the damp, and to 
crack in the frost, and to have bits nicked out 
from unexplained causes. If we refuse to have 
them examined and cared for because they contain 
a sacred treasure, we may find, to our sorrow, that 
a part of the treasure has escaped through a treach- 
erous hole in the bottom of the jar. 

Suppose David had found the ark in a dilapi- 



156 PRAYER-ISIEETINGS. 

dated old cart, and had called out his thirty thou- 
sand chosen men with harps and psalteries and 
timbrels and cornets and cymbals, to give it a tri- 
umphal entry into the city ; would there not, very 
likely, have been men here and there who would 
have discovered and announced that the paint was 
worn dingy, that the shafts were broken, that the 
tire was springing from the wheel, and the linch- 
pin was coming out ? And if David had tried to 
silence them by saying, " Hold ye your peace ! 
it is the ark of the Lord," would they not have 
justly replied : " Not so. It is not the ark of the 
Lord. It is nothing but an old cart ; but because 
it does carry the ark of the Lord, it should be the 
very best that the land can furnish. Go to, let us 
cast aside the miserable thing, and build a better, 
even a worthier." 

To ridicule the honest efforts of shrinking mod- 
esty requires a weak head and a bad heart. He 
who can feel, not to say express, a sentiment ap- 
proachmg to mockery at the mistakes which sen- 
sitiveness and agitation will often make, has a 
coarse-fibred as well as a depraved mind. The 
finest natures often make the worst figures in 
public. Real delicacy feels a sympathy with the 
embarrassment so strong, and a respect for the 
courage so profound, as to preclude every other 
emotion ; but these feelings are not called out 
by the objectionable habits into which men fall 
throuo;h carelessness or ijznorance. 



PRAYER-MEETINGS. 157 

Still, as I was about to say, these things are only 
circumstances ; they are not essences. They do 
in no wise account for the leanness that often pre- 
sides at our spiritual feasts. The bodily presence 
may be weak, and the speech contemptible ; but if 
the fire of Divine Love be kindled in the heart, 
there will flash through all disguises an eloquence 
which is not of the earth, earthy ; which is of the 
Lord from heaven. The faltering words of a 
hesitating soul trembling between fear of man and 
love of God have often cloven the armor of a self- 
ish, worldly nature, piercing even to the dividing 
asunder of soul and spirit. The angel of the Lord 
lays the live coal alike upon the lips of learned 
and unlearned, and speeds them on heavenly 
errands. 

There are in prayer-meetings more serious 
defects than these, — defects which admit of no 
palliation, — defects which every one ought to 
deprecate, condemn, and, as far as possible, root 
out. I mean the mockery of holy things ; the 
cant which, under the name of piety, wearies the 
Lord with its words ; the Pharisaism which would 
pass for Christianity ; the wholesale slander which 
covers itself with the mantle of religious zeal ; the 
censoriousness which assumes the garb of faithful- 
ness ; the heartlessness which handles the denun- 
ciations of God as a child handles its playthings. 
Such displays are not common. Shame that they 
should ever occur ! Shame that the way to 



158 PRAYER-MEETINGS. 

lieaven should ever be turned into a way to 
death ! 

Not so bad as this, jet radically wrong, both as 
a fact and as a sign, are the paucity of thought 
and the shallowness of feeling so commonly ex- 
hibited at prayer-meetings. Our exhortations 
and prayers are too often the result of an outward 
necessity, not of an inward prompting. We 
speak, not because our hearts burn within us, — 
not because we feel that, if we should hold our 
peace, the very stones would cry out, — but be- 
cause the meeting must be kept up. Instead of 
definiteness, conciseness, and pith, — "infinite 
riches in a little room," — we have abstractions 
and dilutions and doubhngs and painful egotisms. 
It is routine and duty and treadmill. This must 
be, just so long as our lives furnish nothing higher. 
If we put God out of our thoughts on Monday 
and Tuesday, we cannot have any new thought of 
God wherewith to strengthen our brother's soul 
on Tuesday evening. No harvest can spring up 
where no seed is sown. You cannot be warm and 
filled because you are bidden to be. You cannot 
feel interested simply because you ought to feel 
so. You cannot have something to say because 
you are called upon to say something. A thought 
must be wrought out in your soul before it can 
pass through your lips. We can gather ourselves 
together and multiply words, but unless we are 
charged with love to God and love to man, heart 



PRAYER-MEETINGS, 159 

meets heart to little purpose ; brain flashes no light 
on brain. 

It is not that worshippers are to be startled 
into attention and interest by news, novelty, ec- 
centricities, conceits, and far-fetched combinations, 
nor that prayer-meetings are to l^e turned into 
exchanges, where people are to meet in order to 
tell or to hear some new thing. It is the grand old 
truths that the world wants perversely to forget, 
and of which it needs to be forever reminded, 
but in love, not hate or scorn or pride. It is the 
same old carol words chanted by Moses when time 
was young, — harped for all ages by Israel's shep- 
herd-king, — swelling in fuller strains as the heav- 
enly host gathered over the hills of Judaea, — that 
man needs to have forever sung to him in new 
notes and chords and concords, that shall witch 
back his flagging interest, and charm away his 
indifference " ere he is aware." 

What we want is more of the spirit of Christ 
in our hearts. Our chapels can never become the 
gate of heaven till there is more of heaven in our- 
selves. " The kingdom of God is within you." 
The life of the prayer-meeting depends on the life 
of the shop, the office, the farm, the dairy, the 
kitchen, the closet. 

This meagreness of life is often painfully indi- 
cated by the avidity with which unusual incidents 
are seized and spun out and wrought into moral 
reflections and practical applications. An immense 



160 PRAYER-MEETINGS. 

quantity of nondescript rhetoric is evolved in the 
attempt to " improve " a " providence." Un- 
doubtedly there is such a thing as a providence, 
and there is such a thing as improving it ; but 
providences are always happening, and we are 
not always improving them when we think we 
are. 

Providences (as the word is colloquially used) 
are always happening. To the man whose eyes the 
Lord hath opened, no day passes without bringing 
fresh proof of God's love or wisdom or power ; but 
many of us walk with blind eyes and deaf ears 
to the beauty that breathes and the music that 
rings all along our daily paths. Only when we 
receive a great shock, when something breaks in 
upon the selfish, stolid monotone of our lives and 
forces our notice, are we startled into wonder, 
admiration, and awe, and exclaim, " Surely the 
Lord is in this place, and I knew it not." Then, 
with honest purpose, with, no doubt, sincere de- 
sire to learn and to teach the lesson which it bears, 
we begin to expound and warn and infer and ad- 
monish, till the theme is " done to death." Waked 
suddenly from our slothful inertia, we lay about 
us right and left with eager but awkw^ard strokes. 
By as much as we have been remiss before, by so 
much we now overdo. This is, indeed, better 
than the inertia. Agitation, be it ever so violent 
and irregular, is better than stagnation. But 
better than either is the quiet, healthful flow of 



PRAYER-MEETINGS. 161 

the life-giving river rolling through green meadows 
and purple vineyards to the peaceful sea. Our 
lives should be more equable. If our religion 
permeated all the root-fibres and branch-tendrils 
of our souls, it would bud and blossom in perpet- 
ual spring ; whereas it too often lies long dormant, 
and then shoots up into spasmodic and short-lived 
growth. If God were to us an own familiar friend 
in whom we trusted ; if we could learn to look 
with serious, yet not sad eyes, upon the eternal 
side of all living, and entwine the practical, the 
present, the homely, and the humble with the 
grand, the unseen and eternal ; if we could look 
upon the shop, the field, the kitchen, the parlor, 
not simply as the servants of the body, but as the 
ministers of the soul, — we should not need to 
fasten upon any one incident to furnish the staple 
for our prayer-meetings ; we should be embar- 
rassed only by the multitude which from all sides 
would call upon our souls to praise the name of 
the Lord. We should be continually improving 
providences, — speaking often one to another of 
the wonderful works of God. 

On a certain Sabbath morning, several years 
ago, an earthquake set one of our New England 
cities a~trembling for a few minutes, and then went 
on its way ; but throughout the day, and I know 
not how long after, the religious services were 
saturated with earthquake. It was served up in 
the pulpit and the Sabbath school and the prayer- 



162 PRA YER-MEETINGS. 

meeting, bj clergy and laltj, till one could not 
help feeling that the good people handled the poor 
earthquake a great deal more severely than the 
earthquake handled them. Do not misunderstand 
me. Do not suppose that I object to drawing 
moral lessons from physical or other occurrences. 
Object ? It is the very thing which I think we 
ought to do, — only we ought to do a great deal 
more of it — and a great deal less ; more in some 
directions, less, relatively, in others ; more on or- 
dinary, less, relatively, on extraordinary occasions. 
From every such occurrence it is meet, right, and 
our bounden duty, to draw all the good it has to 
give ; but having pumped it dry, what is the use 
of jerking the handle up and down, especially 
when thousands of living springs are welling 
through the verdure under our feet, and all around 
us ? 

It is, indeed, but natural that rare events should 
excite more attention than common ones. Al- 
though an earthquake no more exhibits and illus- 
trates God's power and presence than the daily 
returning sun, yet it will, from its very infre- 
quence, produce a deeper and more solemn im- 
pression of his power. This is all right. It is not 
that one event goes too deep, but that the many 
do not go deep enough. The one impression need 
not be diminished, but the other needs to be in- 
creased. We shall never attain the measure of 
the stature of the fulness of Christ till we get into 



PRAYER-MEETINGS. 163 

equilibrium, till we better understand the relations 
of things. We need to remember that God num- 
bers the hairs of our heads, and watches the young 
sparrows as they fly, and calls the stars by name, 
and showers new mercies every morning, and fresh 
blessings every evening. If we will but assign to 
these every-day events their true place in the 
Divine economy, we shall not exhaust ourselves 
and others with convulsive efforts to wrench from 
some startling and unusual event the lesson which 
every sunrise would gladly teach. He who can 
express the strength-giving juice from all fruits, 
need not cling to the dry rind of any. If we 
would see God's providence, his wise and careful 
and benevolent foresight, as displayed wherever we 
choose to look, we should not harp upon any sin- 
gle exhibition of it. But we forget the undulations 
which make the landscape so rich, so varied, and 
so beautiful, and notice only the mountains that 
lift their hoar heads to the clouds. Thereby we 
lose much ; for though the mountains are grand, 
and speak grand words, — of passion soothed into 
repose, and strength ministering to humanity, and 
vigor waiting upon beauty, — yet the mountains 
are few and far, accessible only to individuals, 
and require toilsome journeyings and waitings 
and watchings ; while the hills swell everywhere, 
clothed with greenness and crowned with flowers. 
The thunder-cloud sweeps over the sky, and flings 
its impetuous abundance to the earth, that drinks 



164 PRAYER-MEETINGS. 

it in with thirsty lips ; but tlie life that wakes in 
maple-buds, and pierces the brown soil in tender 
herbage, and breathes in the first sweet scents of 
snowdi'op and hyacinth and arbutus, is the child 
of gentle spring showers and silent summer dews. 

We have all heard of the man who was grate- 
fully narrating the mercy of God in preserving 
him unhurt when his horse stumbled and threw 
him upon the rocks. " But I," said his friend, 
" have still greater reason to be thankful ; for my 
horse did not stumble at all." 

This is the key to the whole matter. This is 
the way to make life fruitful of gratitude. Thus 
not only will deep call unto deep, but we shall see 
the loving-kindness of the Lord in the day-time, 
and in the nio;ht his song; shall be with us. When 
we go to the house of God, it will be with the 
multitude, with the voice of joy and praise. Seven 
men shall no longer, in leanness of soul, lay hold 
of one theme ; but every man shall see the Lord 
under his own vine and fig-tree, and his mouth 
shall be filled with laughter and his tongue with 
singing, till out of the abundance of his heart he 
cannot choose but speak. 

The quality of our moral reflections is often 
defective, as well as the quantity. When death 
wrenches a vigorous young soul from its palpitat- 
ing body ; or when a gray head lies down peace- 
fully in the grave ; or when the little children go 
up to Jesus from mothers' arms that would fain 



PR A YER-MEE TINGS. 1 ^od 

press them forever to mothers' hearts, God speaks. 
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. But what 
is t]:ie message ? A good deacon rises in the 
prayer-meeting and reminds the young people of 
the uncertainty of life, — warns them that youth 
may be cut down as well as age, — and exhorts 
them to be prepared. All true and right, but not 
to the point ; because the young people have heai'd 
their mothers say that their friend's death was the 
result of a cold caught by carelessly sitting on the 
door-step with bare shoulders, through a damp 
summer evening, and they resolve — that it is an 
imprudent and dangerous indulgence, and that 
they will avoid it. It admonishes them less of the 
uncertainty of life, than of the danger of damp 
evenings. It was a mysterious Providence that 
smote down the strong man, blotting out his sun 
from heaven at its zenith, and shrouding his 
hearth-stone in darkness ; but not so very mys- 
terious to the strong men who stand around his 
bier and remember that warm August day, four 
weeks ago, when he went home tired, heated, and 
hungry, ate an inordinate quantity of heavy food 
and unripe fruit, and drank large draughts of cold 
water, thereby throwing upon his system a bur- 
den which, in its exhausted state, it could not 
bear; and they resolve — to be temperate. The 
lesson to them is less of the uncertainty of life 
than of the necessity of prudence and moderation. 
When the little baby lies in its tiny coffin with 



166 PRAYER-MEETINGS. 

strange, wan cheeks, and unbabylike, tldn hands, 
the tender-hearted mothers bend over it and weep 
with those that weep ; but thej mentally resolve 
not to keep their own babies shut up in the close 
air of the nursery, as this baby was, and not to 
nauseate them with food when they are already 
sufferino; from surfeit. And the mothers and the 
strong men and the young people are right, though 
the good deacons are not wrong. They are right, 
because a very large proportion of deaths are un- 
timely, and the lesson which they ought to teach 
is less of the uncertamty of life than of the cer- 
tainty of law, — the inexorable sequence of eflPect 
and cause, — the fixedness of our organization, — 
the absolute impossibility of sinning against our 
constitution without suffering the penalty. This 
is a lesson which should be learned, and this the 
time when hearts are often most ready to learn it. 
They have begun to point the moral themselves ; 
if their leader has a sharper eye and a stronger 
hand than theirs, let him complete the work. 
"Where they are slow to learn, let him be swift to 
teach. But would it not be considered rather 
below the dignity of the occasion to derive such a 
conclusion from such an event ? Is it below the 
dignity of the occasion ? Has God, or has he not, 
given our health and our life in large measure to 
our own keeping ? Is it according to his eternal 
purpose that babies and young men and maidens 
shall die, or that they shall do the world's work. 



PRAYER-MEETINGS. 1G7 

and go down to the grave like a shock of corn in 
its season^ fully ripe ? Does he intend that we 
shall violate the laws of our being, either through 
ignorance or carelessness, and then resign ourselves 
piously to the dispensations of Providence ? Is it 
a dispensation of Providence ? Is it not rather a 
dispensation of improvidence ? 

I know there are many cases where death comes 
prematurely and unaccountably, but there are 
more cases than we heed where it comes prema- 
turely and accountably; and the very fact that 
there are sorrows which no foresight can prevent 
is an additional reason why we should guard against 
unnecessary sorrow. 

I know that the innocent often suffer from the 
transgressions of the guilty. When a young man 
dies from his over-bold deed, his mother, who would 
have given her life to save him, goes down to her 
grave mourning. When a reckless engineer drives 
his engine headlong to destruction, — when an ill- 
built factory crumbles to shapeless ruin, — the 
guilty and the guiltless, the responsible and the 
irresponsible, perish in a common death, and their 
mourners go about the streets. Healing balm for 
their stricken spirits, — oil and wine, and tender- 
est ministrations. But the question comes back, 
What is the whole lesson to be derived for all from 
every death ? And in each case, what is the 
whole lesson to be derived from this man's death ? 
What is the moral which this event chiefly 
points ? 



168 PR A YER-MEE TINGS. 

For it cannot be said that, even when death 
is self-invoked, prudence, carefulness, caution, is 
the only lesson taught. Every soul that parts the 
veil between this and the unseen world, no matter 
under what circumstances, lets in a ray of light 
from that world, which our heavy eyes often fail 
to see ; and whoever strikes off the scales so that 
we can take in the heavenly vision does God ser- 
vice by bringing heaven to earth. 

But what I mean is this : if there is a right and 
a wrong in this matter ; if there is a sm, the wages 
of which is death ; that is, if death be the direct 
result of culpable carelessness or ignorance, we 
ought not to let the lesson w^hich it directly 
teaches go unlearned, and point out only the one 
which it teaches indirectly ; we ought not to 
confine ourselves to one aspect of the case, — the 
uncertainty of life and the certainty of death, — 
and warn and admonish from that stand-point only. 
When a man dies, let us see whether it be not an 
admonition for us to live. It may say, " Set thine 
house in order, for thou shalt die " ; and it may 
say, "Set thine house in order or thou shalt 
die." 

We make a mistake. We do not appreciate 
life. We do not rise to the height of its dignity. 
We exalt death and degrade life, when we should 
exalt life and degrade death. Death is a penalty, 
— " the mark of our shame, the seal of our sor- 
row," — the deep dishonor of our race, — the yoke j 



PR A YER-MEE TINGS. 1 69 

under wliicli we must all bend our captive lieads. 
In death itself, there can. be nothing noble, for 
death is involuntary and inevitable. Death passes 
upon all, for that all have sinned. Death is re- 
pulsive. It works woe to strength and beauty. 
It changes the hkeness of God into dust and 
desolation. 

But life is glorious. Life is the time to serve 
the Lord. Life is fruitful of great deeds. Life 
carves the soul into Divine symmetry, if we will 
but grasp it nobly. Life is the battle-ground ; 
the hosts of sin are marshalled on the one side, 
the hosts of holiness on the other ; man can 
choose on which side he will serve, and there 
is no greater victory than the victory over sin. 
From the beginning to the end of life, the stal- 
Y/art arm can always find a sturdy foe ; and every 
blow struck is a blow for suflFering humanity, and 
for the Christ that died to redeem it ; and every 
blow struck is sure to be successful. 

What is death to this ? Death is only an inci- 
dent ; life is the essence. Death is passive ; life 
is active. Death is shrinking ; life is aggressive. 
Death is but for a moment ; life is forever. Death 
is the blot of time ; life is the radiance of eternity. 

When we talk about preparation for death, then, 
what do we mean ? Is there any way of prepar- 
ing for death except living rightly ? Since death 
is not a thing to be done, but to be endured ; not 
heaven, but the passage into heaven ; not the 
8 



170 PRA YER-MEETINGS. 

judgment, but an antecedent of tlie judgment ; 
not even a putting off, but a falling off, — while 
all the good and all the glory are to be got from 
life, — shall we not bend all our forces to living ? 
Since it is not a poetic fancy, but an eternal truth, 
that 

" There is no death, — what seems so is transition " 

from corruptible to incorruption, from mortal to im- 
mortality, — shall we not cry out with the tranced 
poet and the rapt Christian : 

" Life, O Beyond, 
Thou art strange, thou art sweet ! " 

Blessed be God for giving us the boon of a life 
so flooded with glory that its light stretches across 
the very valley of the shadow of death, to where 
the shining ones stand on the other side to receive 
the eager soul, — for the boon of a life so heroic 
that it ennobles even death, throwing its mantle 
over that ghastly Terror, and so wrapping it in 
the folds of love and faith and courage and con- 
stancy, and all the grand, sweet virtues of mar- 
tyrdom, that men rush to its embrace as a friend, 
and Death, disarmed of his sting, and conquered 
by Almighty power, 

" Kisses them into slumbers like a bride." 

" The present, the present, is all thou hast for 
thy sure possessing." We know that w^e can 
serve the Lord to-day, but we know not what 
shall be on the morrow. The possible grave hid- 



PRAYER-MEETINGS. - 171 

den in its mysterious tbid::- may be, for one, 
shrouded in thick darkness ; for another, haloed 
with hght ; but to all it is indistinct. This we 
know, that if we serve the Lord to-day, whether 
by worshipping him in the great congregation, or 
by giving a cup of cold water to one of his little 
ones, he will not fail us. 

Christ, laid hold of in faith to-day, will sustain 
us in the overflowing of the waters to-morrow. 
Though now, in the full flush of youth and health 
and strength, every nerve instinct with vitality, 
we cannot look at death without pain and shud- 
dering, let us not fear. Dying grace will come 
with dying. God, who hath so loved us, will not 
leave us then. A father does not caress his child 
through the long summer day, to abandon him at 
nightfall. Darkness may veil him from the little 
one's sight, or slumber lull him to temporary for- 
getfulness ; but his loving-kindness wraps his child 
about in the still hours, and a fatherly .presence 
is in the house for good. More loving than this, 
an eye that never slumbers, and to which no dark- 
ness is a veil, watches over us in all our weary 
wanderings, and will surely not lose sight of us 
when the dark river heaves its cold billows at our 
feet. More than this, as a father precedes his 
frightened child along rocky ways, removing all 
obstructions, encouraging him with friendly words, 
and holding out sustaining arms in the gloom, so 
God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount 



172 ' PRAYER-MEETINGS. 

Paran, and passed through the valley of shadows, 
M^'e sting from death his sting, from the grave his 
victorv, making the crooked places straight, and 
the rough places plain, that we, his weak, fearful, 
trembling children, may come off, not unharmed 
only, but conquerors and more than conquerors, — 
may have, not only a safe deliverance, but a tri- 
umphant entrance into the city of our God, to go 
no more out forever. O love of Christ, which 
passeth knowledge ! Unutterable love, from which 
neither principalities, nor powers, nor things pres- 
ent, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, 
nor any other creature, shall be able to separate 
us ! Shall we fear to trust it ? Shall we, through 
fear of death, be all our lifetime subject to bond- 
age ? Nay, rather let us walk joyfully before him 
till the end come, and then lie down as joyfully in 
the arms of everlasting love ; for so he giveth his 
beloved sleep. 

Again, there are too many meetings, — not too 
many, perhaps, in the aggregate, but they are 
not equally distributed, and there are too many in 
spots. In sparsely-settled villages circumstances 
may prevent the evil, but in many of our large 
cities gregariousness is rampant. The clergyman 
in a city church on last Sunday morning gave out 
the following notices : " Morning Union Prayer- 
meeting every morning at nine, and Evening 
at five o'clock. Church prayer-meeting on Mon- 
day evening. Stated prayer-meeting on Tuesday 



PRAYER-MEETINGS. 173 

evening. Church meeting on Wednesday even- 
ing, and lecture on Thursday evening." 

To the mental vigor, moral power, and general 
effectiveness of the pastor, if he attends all or half 
the meetings, such a round of services must be 
ruinous. No resources can supply so continuous 
a demand. He must offer to his people the dry 
rind of other men's grapes, instead of the richness 
of his own purple vintage. Thought and feel- 
ing are wrought up by palpable endeavor to the 
proper pitch, instead of coming down by simple 
force of gravity from a cataractic height of in- 
ward life so vast, that every drop of water weighs 
a pound, — not because it is hurled hard, but be- 
cause it cannot help it. Christian individuality is 
endangered by this prevailing tendency to associ- 
ation. The type of character is less strong, vig- 
orous, independent, than it should be. Religion 
is more conventional and less personal. It fastens 
on to the tongue, but does not strike in. Temp- 
tation comes to a man alone ; so come strength 
and firmness and integrity. Through the unex- 
plored solitudes of the heart the whisper of the 
tempter steals, and the still, small voice of con- 
science speaks. There the battle is fought and — 
lost to sin and shame and sorrow, or won for truth 
and right and God ; and where the battle-ground 
is, there should the man be at home. The way 
to keep a foe from a disputed territory is to over- 
run it with your own armies. If you would not 



174 PRAYER-MEETINGS. 

have the Devil march into your own heart, and 
stake it off and take possession, yon must pre-empt 
the ground yourself in the name of the Most High 
God. Satan is a great coward. He dares not 
attack us in the broad day, when we are surround- 
ed by the good, and hedged in by good influences, 
but he steals upon our aloneness, — if it may be, 
unawares. Let him find that we have been there 
before him, — that Christ is lodged in every most 
hidden depth of the soul, and every remotest 
wilderness, — that every avenue is barred, every 
pass guarded, every barricade bristling with guns, 
— and he will call off his force with slicrht attack. 
Kesist the Devil and he will flee from you. 

It is not in the woods, surrounded by its mates, 
sheltered from the full fury of the storm, and de- 
prived of the full glory of the sun, that the tree 
attains its grandest growth. It is alone in the 
fields that its real might and majesty are seen ; 
for there the North wind sweeps down in un- 
checked madness, and every root thrusts out its 
fibrous fingers in unrelaxing gi'asp upon the stur- 
dy soil, and every slender twig exerts its utmost 
strength to wrench itself from the icy embrace. 

There are people who seem to find the one 
Mediator between God and man, the man Christ 
Jesus, insufficient. They can have no communion 
with God unless there is a corporation between 
him and them. They cannot find any house of 
God unless there is a multitude going up with 



PRAYER -MEETINGS. 175 

them. Tliey are not easy until they have all 
things common. They seem not to have any, or 
at least they have a very feeble, conception of a 
rivulet whose course can be marked only by the 
deeper tint of violets, and the fresher green of the 
upspringing grass. Unless they see the foaming, 
and hear the roaring, they do not believe there 
is any water there. By active piety, they under- 
stand a readiness to take part in prayer-meetings 
and exhortations. The more a man talks, the bet- 
ter and brighter Christian he is. They cannot 
conceive how any one who has tasted and seen 
that the Lord is gracious, can prefer to stay at 
home of an evening, rather than go to the chapel 
or vestry. They are omnivorous and voracious. 
Any kind of a meeting, so that it is a meeting, 
suits them. They are shy about waiting upon the 
Lord alone. Whenever they present themselves 
to him, they seem to want a retinue. Such piety 
is suspicious. 

Association is a very good thing in its place, 
but when it destroys or diminishes the sense of 
personal .responsibility; when it substitutes the 
temporary enthusiasm arising from contiguity of 
place, for the serene and steady flame of love 
towards God ; when it hides individual weakness 
with collective strength in cases where the former 
will, in the long run, not only ruin the individual, 
but the mass, — then association is a very poor 
thing, or, which amounts to the same, a good 



176 PRAYER-MEETINGS. 

thing out of place. Its evil effects are contin- 
ually seen. How often do we hear of Eastern 
church-memhers leaving their homes, settling in 
the West, and then forgetting their principles, 
neglecting their duties, and living without God and 
without hope in the world. Yet the moral almost 
invariably drawn is, that churches must be estab- 
lished, and ministers sent there, in order to prevent 
such grievous relapses, — which is a very different 
moral from v/hat I should draw. Undoubtedly the 
men ought to go, and the churches ought to be 
formed ; but I do not infer it from such facts. I 
infer that our mode of operation needs to be over- 
hauled at the East, rather than established at the 
West. I should say that the trouble arose from 
what happened before the man left his old home, 
rather than from w^hat happened after he reached 
the new. His course there is the natural result 
of his course here. He withers like the mown 
grass, and for the same reason ; because he is 
severed from the source of nourishment. Shall 
we not then supply the nourishment again ? Not 
at all. Such nourishment is factitious. " All my 
springs are in Thee ! " The ordinances of relig- 
ion are but pipes for the better conveyance of the 
water of life to thirsty souls. He mistook them 
for the fountain itself, and when they were sev- 
ered, instead of repairing directly to that, he 
faded as a leaf, — he died of thirst. 

There is no reason why a man who has once 



PBAYER-MEETINGS. 177 

been born into grace should not go on growing in 
it, — whatever his circumstances may be. A man 
who owns a Bible has the very best of facilities 
for learning -God's will, though he has not all. 
But the trouble is, men do not accustom them- 
selves to standing alone at home, and consequently 
they are weak in the knees when they go abroad. 
They band together, and sway together, and hold 
each other doubtfully up. All well enough if it 
were possible to stay together always, and man's 
chief end were to keep his feet ; but since cir- 
cumstances necessitate frequent separations, and 
it is the duty of every individual to attain and 
exert the greatest strength possible to him, this 
dependence on others proves to be poor prepara- 
tion for the coming contest. If relaxes the mus- 
cles that should be tensely tightened, and the 
nerves that should be firmly strung. So, when 
the man goes ofT into the wilderness by himself, 
he shivers and shakes and falls. To remedy this 
defect by multiplying churches, is like trying to 
strengthen a baby's legs by tying them up in 
splinters. They will not give way while the splin- 
ters are on, but the moment the sphnters are 
removed, down they fall as weak as before. This 
is not the way mothers do. They strengthen the 
weak hands and confirm the feeble knees with 
generous supplies of wholesome, nutritious food. 
They teach and guide, and leave the little feet to 
totter on alone at the risk of a few falls. 
8* L 



178 PRAYER-MEETINGS. 

A faith that lays hold on God, and strikes 
its roots into God, and derives its sustenance 
from God, may be shaken, but cannot be sun- 
dered. A faith that faints and dies must have 
had its source this side of God, and needs not to 
be renewed, but to be thrown off, to make room 
for a better. Every young Christian should be 
trained to stand, and walk, and fight alone. Out 
of weakness he should be made so strong that his 
single arm can subdue kingdoms, stop the mouths 
of hons, and turn to flight the armies of ahens. 
It should be an established fact that a man is to 
be just as activ^e and efficient a Christian single- 
handed in the midst of a wicked and perverse 
generation, as if he stood in the assemblies of 
saints. The Church mihtant is not precisely like 
the World mihtant ; for whereas, in the latter, 
superior numbers will conquer inferior, in the 
former, one can chase a thousand, and two put 
ten thousand to flight, — and yet they are, per- 
haps, not so different after all, for in both it is 
quality, not quantity, that wins the day. A regi- 
ment of well-trained soldiers will disperse a mob 
of angry thousands, and one valiant, able-bodied, 
well-armed Christian is more than a match for the 
snares of the crowded city or the squatter's wil- 
derness. 

I have no faith in a religion that cannot stand 
fire. Of what earthly use is it, in a world where 
temptations are the order of the day, wdiere your 



PRAYER-MEETINGS. 179 

adversary, the Devil, walketh about like a roaring 
lion, seeking whom he may devour ? If a man 
cannot be a good Christian without the counte- 
nance of associates, he will not be much of a 
Christian with. Understand, this does In no wise 
militate against the ordinances of religion, any 
more than Abraham Lincoln's present position 
indicates that colleges are useless, and splitting 
rails is the royal road to greatness. When a man. 
neglects an opportunity to avail himself of such 
helps to learning as a college affords, the chances 
are ninety-nine in a hundred that he has no desire 
to learn. The Church is the Christian's college. 
If he can, he will gladly improve its advantages. 
If he cannot, he will by no means sink into stu- 
pidity and sloth, but rub along as best he may, 
and come out strong in the end. Too many 
undergraduates make that the end which should 
be the means, and when they come to be weighed 
in the balance, they are found wanting. They 
have not strength to resist unto blood, striving 
against sin. 

We shall be judged singly, and not in squads. 
The Church and the World must appear before 
God by individuals, and every man give an ac- 
count of himself. If thou art wise, thou art wise 
for thyself. If thou scornest, thou alone shalt 
bear it. 



VII. 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 




^ HE ministry of the word at the present 
day, in the pulpit, in the prayer-meet- 
ing, in private conversation, and in 
y% our religious hterature, fails to make 
all the impression of which the truth is capable, — 
fails to bring men up to the mark for the prize of 
their high calling, — fails to wield most eflPectively 
the two-edged sword of Divine power, — nay, 
sometimes blunts its edge and destroys its temper, 
because of the subjectivity to which it appeals for 
tests of Christian character. " Am I, are you, is 
he, a Christian ? " is the anxious question that 
arises in every hoping, trembling, awakened 
heart, — hoping and trembling for itself or for 
the weal of some dearer life than its own. How 
shall an answer be obtained ? How is it ob- 
tained ? The inquirer is urged to observe the 
state of his mind as to the plan of salvation, — his 
views of his character in the sin;ht of God, — his 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 181 

clear exercise of faith in Christ, — his sense of 
pardon and acceptance, — his reception of Christ 
as the only redemption, etc., — all orthodox and 
therefore unobjectionable, — all subjective, and 
therefore, in a measure, useless ; for the weak- 
ness of man is that he can in no wise thread 
the labyrinth of his own mind ; and the misery 
of man is that, though his heart is deceitful and 
desperately wicked, all the light that travels to 
his soul must pass through it. Even if we could 
take out of man all his sin, whether original or 
acquired, — leaving him just as he is, only pure, 
— still he would be ignorant of the workings of 
his own mind. He would know effects, but 
would be little skilled in causes. The how and 
the why and the wherefore would be, for the 
greater part, a sealed book to him. How much 
more, when the heart has become warped and 
clouded and untuned by sin, so that when we 
demand just judgment, we receive the verdict 
of prejudice and inclination and passion ; when 
we look through it, we see but dimly ; when we 
strike it, it gives an uncertain sound. 

How many of us know from what our ideas are 
derived, whence our conclusions are drawn, or 
whither our opinions tend ? I am brave : is it 
because I came of a race of mountaineers, or be- 
cause I have never been in circumstances of real 
danger, or because I am surrounded by ample 
protection, or because I have never met the pre- 



182 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

cise object suited to call forth my peculiar latent 
cowardice ? I am moved to indignation hj the 
corruption that pervades our land : is it the innate 
nobility of my soul, or the Puritan church spire 
whose shadow fell athwart the path of my young 
years, or a sordid, fixed, yet perhaps vague con- 
viction, that, in the long run, honesty is the best 
policy, or the dull delight of a half-unconscious 
revenge for the disappointment of my youthful 
hopes of political prominence, — - any or all of 
these ? The emotion- in a man's mind may be 
love to God and repentance unto salvation, or it 
may be the influence of an earnest, faithful, be- 
loved minister's mind upon his own, or it may be 
that his heart, softened by the tears of some recent 
affliction, can more readily receive the impress of 
the Saviour's footsteps, or it may be the magnetism 
of cognate life, or it may be all combined. The 
workings of the mind are, from its very nature, 
complex and hard to be understood ; but when the 
element of sin is thrown into the calculation, who 
can make the crooked paths straight and the rough 
places plain ? " Is thy servant a dog that he 
should do this thing ? " cried the astonished and 
indicrnant Hazael : for lookino- into his own heart 
he did not see ambition, avarice, tyranny, oppres- 
sion, cruelty, treachery, murder, — couchant \\ox\s 
in covert lairs, biding their time ; yet they were 
there, and sjie prophet's eye, divinely keen, pen- 
etrated theii: lurking-places, and an hour came 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 183 

when they rose in their strength and wrought a 
fell work. 

Deeply and sadly impressed with the deceitful- 
ness of this uncertain heart, another prophet cries 
out, " Who shall know it ? " and from the heaven 
of heavens comes the calm response, " I the Lord 
search the heart," — implying, as plainly as words 
can imply anything, that only the Lord is sufficient 
for these things. Yet, be it remembered, through 
this abyss of wickedness which no line of ours can 
fathom, must the beams of the Sun of Righteous- 
ness shine upon us. Surely, then, it cannot be 
wise to trust so largely to its representations. It 
cannot be wise to make so much account of the 
interpretations of an organ which has so often 
played us false that it has, in a measure, lost the 
power of truth-telling, — nay, even of discerning 
between truth and falsehood ; for it is not only^a 
deceiving, but a deceived heart, that turns us aside 
so that we cannot deliver our souls, or say whether 
or not there is a He in our right hands. 

Real self-examination being, then, so difficult — 
not to say impossible — for many, for most peo- 
ple, that they can make little headway in it, 
a great deal of the advice which inculcates it 
must be misplaced and injudicious. The self- 
examination which does amount to anything is 
generally incidental and involuntary. Ordinari- 
ly, set a man down to put himself, in cold blood, 
through a course of self-examination, and he is out 



184 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE, 

at sea without compass or star or sun. His 
thoughts go flying off in a tangent towards all 
quarters of the globe. The last thing in the 
world that he can concentrate himself on, is him- 
self. Some are conscious of this ; some are not ; 
but that does not affect the result. A boy sincerely 
believes that he has been studying his lesson, when 
he has only been poring over his book ; but his 
lesson is no more learned than if he knew he had 
been idhno; all the while.* 

Frames of mind, by which we set so much store 
in making up an inventory of Christian posses- 
sions, are comparatively of small value. A large 
proportion of the copious extracts from private 
diaries, which enter so largely into our religious 
memoirs, are not only tiresome and useless, but 
positively pernicious. As a general thing, they 
would better never have been written ; but to drag 
them into print is a harm to the world. Morbid 
anatomists may find pleasure in it, and nerveless 
organisms may feel no pain ; but a healthy, sensi- 
tive soul can be only shocked. They prove noth- 
ing, — nothing, at least, which they were designed 
to prove ; for frames of mind are largely dependent 
on frames of body. Given a feeling of desponden- 
cy ; it may be a sense of sin that overwhelms the 
soul, or it may be the dyspepsia. Digestion is a 
great aid to devotion. Serenity is the natural 
concomitant of a well-ordered dinner ; while a 
man ^^'ho is suffering the horrors of clammy bread, 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 185 

or an mi masticated dumpling, or a midnight mince- 
pie, can hardly help viewing himself as altogether 
vile, — and will not be far out of the way, either. 
If we feel called upon to write out in our journals 
a description of our raptures and our despondencies, 
we should prefix to every one the bill of fare for 
the day, the hour of rising and retiring, the amount 
and quality of exercise taken and work performed. 
Thus the recital may be of service to physiology, 
and, since physiology, like every other true science, 
is the handmaid of religion, — to religion. This 
is not, as some seem to suppose, making religion 
wait upon the appetite, degrading it into a mere 
camp-follower of the stomach, and projecting into 
our theology a gross materialism. It is, on the 
contrary, a thrusting back of the material, which 
is always insolently attempting to encroach upon 
the spiritual. It is branding the criminal, that all 
men may see and shun him, or defend themselves 
against him. It is the soul saying to the body : 
" Hitherto you have rioted wnth impunity, but you 
shall go no further. You have masked your evil 
deeds under a penitential sorrow, and, through 
ignorance or negligence, you have escaped scot- 
free. You have indulged your inclinations, and I 
have paid the penalty. You have run up the 
score, and I have footed the bills. Now we will 
have a settlement and a readjustment. I will 
condescend to your weaknesses, but I will not be 
responsible for them. They must be my sorrow, 



186 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

but they shall not be my sin, — least of all, my 
glory." 

Such transcripts are, I think, injurious for two 
reasons ; first, they emit a flavor of vanity and 
hypocrisy. If it was a strictly private diary, its 
privacy should still be respected. If it was not 
strictly private, its value as a faithful transcriber — 
which is its sole value — is gone. Secondly, they 
often raise a false standard. They are apt to be held 
up for our example, and young people are taught 
to believe that they ought to have a similar expe- 
rience. The probability is that they ought to have 
no such thing. One man's feelings are no sort 
of criterion for another man's feelings. Hold up 
God in his thousand-fold manifestations, and duty 
in its thousand forms, and let every man originate 
his own feelino-s. Love to God and faith in Christ 
are called forth by something outside of us, not 
by anything within us. Looking unto Jesus, not 
looking unto ourselves, is the true way to grow in 
grace. 

Plant divine truth, loosen the soil around it, 
water it, and weed it, and let it alone. Do not be 
continually digging up the seed to see if it has 
sprouted. 

It was human weakness endowed with heavenly 
wisdom that cried, " Search me, O God, and know 
my heart ; try me, and know my thoughts, and 
see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead 
me in the way everlasting." 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 187 

In morals — in anything except mathematics — 
there can be no mathematical certainty. The full 
assurance of faith is — the full assurance of faith^ 
not of positive, demonstrable knowledge ; and faith 
is the substance of things hoped for^ the evidence 
of things not seen. 

It is said that, outside of mathematics, every 
statement is but the balance of probabilities. If 
this is true of matter, cognizable by the senses and 
with balances external to us so that we can exam- 
ine them, how much more is it true of mind, 
wherein is no lens to annihilate distance or to 
magnify minuteness. The mind's eye unassisted 
must examine the whole. With naked arms we 
go down into the soul's arena to wrestle with her 
concerning fate. Vaguely we question her of her 
conditions. 

To ask a sick man what is the matter with him, 
and to rely upon his answer, would be the stupid- 
ity of a quack. The man of science questions him 
of his symptoms, it is true, and the patient de- 
scribes them with w^hat accuracy he may. Some- 
times clearly, sometimes perforce obscurely ; but 
in all cases the object is that he, the doctor, may 
judge, from the patient's feelings and from his own 
observations, what the real state of the case is ; he 
knows that certain sensations which the sick man 
describes refer to sources of which the sufferer is 
ignorant. But in all spiritual diseases the sick 
man is his own physician. No man, no being 



188 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

save the Omniscient, knows the motives of his 

conduct, the conditions under which these motives 

became his, the particular points, in short, which 

make him different from other men. 

And still the question remains unanswered. Still 

the 

" point I long to know, — 

Oft it causes anxious thought, — 
Do I love the Lord or no 7 
Am I his or am I not ? " 

And still it will remain unanswered till we look for 
it in the direction of " how do I live ? " as well as, 
and rather than, in the direction of " how do I 
feel ? " 

Men grope for sometliing tangible. Reaching 
out after their feelings while their feelings elude 
their grasp, or yield only to mislead and deceive, 
longing for a real consciousness, a full assurance, 
which they do not find because the test of charac- 
ter does not come within the scope of their certain 
knowledge of themselves, they set up other tests. 
The minister says, truly, Scripturally, and often 
eloquently : " You must repent of your sins, and 
forsake them. You must take up the cross and 
follow Christ. You must deny all ungodliness, 
and every worldly lust, and live soberly, right- 
eously, and godly. You must fear God and keep 
his commandments, and walk circumspectly before 
him." And the weary, heavy-laden, sin-sick heart 
says : " Yes, I will do all this. I will repent of my 
sins and turn to Jesus. I will take up my cross 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 189 

and join the church. I will be baptized by the 
minister, or confirmed by the bishop. I will go 
to church, to the Sabbath school, to the prayer- 
meeting, and the conference. I will take part 
whenever I am called upon. I will speak to the 
unconverted, warning them of their danger, and 
trying to lead them to Jesus. I will maintain 
family and private prayer." All right things to 
do, only they are not Christianity, but a part of it. 
Unless complemented by other weights, we have 
a false balance, which is an abomination to the 
Lord. 

To preach the Gospel is, as I understand it, first 
to explain it, secondly to enforce its obligations. 
The first is theology theoretical ; the second is 
theology practical. They dovetail into each other. 
The first without the second is useless ; the sec- 
ond' without the first is inconsequent, — besides 
being weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable. They 
react upon each other. The first makes the sec- 
ond intelligent ; the second informs the first with 
vitality. The first alone is a dead faith ; the sec- 
ond alone is a dead morality, — both fit only to be 
cast out and to be trodden under foot of men. An 
enlightened brain will regulate the heart, and a 
devout heart will interpret many hard sayings to 
the baffled brain. Seeking to learn God is grander 
than the possession of all other knowledge ; and 
there is no commentary upon the Holy Scriptures 
like a holy life. 



190 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

Now when the obh'gatlons of the Gospel are en- 
forced, I would have the tests of character brought 
down into the pews, scattered along the benches of 
the chapel, disseminated through memoirs and all 
rehgious literature, in a manner that can be com- 
prehended and applied by learned and unlearn- 
ed, and which learned and unlearned alike need. 
Thus : Which of you who profess to be Christ's 
disciples has this day, for his sake, manifested or 
felt any interest in his little ones ? Which of you, 
for the welfare or happiness of any human being, 
or of any creature dependent on your care and 
tenderness, or coming into any sort of relation with 
you, has made — or has entertained the wish or 
design, if opportunity offered, to make — any 
sacrifice of time, inclination, money, or courtesy ? 

If you wish to know whether you are a Chris- 
tian, inquire of yourself whether, in and for the 
love of God, you seek to make happy those about 
you by smiles and pleasant sayings ? Is it a matter 
of concernment, when you sit down to your break- 
fast, to say a bright word of sympathy or endear- 
ment or playfulness or cheer to your wife, your 
son, your daughter? Do you give Tommy a pre- 
liminary toss as you place him in his high chair, 
or do you praise Kitty's first awkward attempt to 
smooth her own hair ? Do you notice the little 
arrangements that have been made for your com- 
fort and convenience ? Do you compliment the 
cook on the nice coffee, or the light buckwheat 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 191 

cakes, or tlie beautifully brown toast which she sets 
before you, — particularly if the cook bears your 
own name ? When the cat puts up her soft paw 
to remind you that she is there, does your hand 
slide down to rub her fur, and thus make her hap- 
pier for your thought of her, — or, if a law of the 
Medes "and Persians forbids her the dining-room, 
do you throw her a bit of bread to console her ex- 
ile ? Is the faithful dog rewarded by his share, 
not only of food, but of favoritism ? If you have 
yourself an unconquerable aversion to cats and 
dogs, do you still see to it that their lives are not 
a burden to them ? If you meet a child crying in 
the street, do you endeavor to console him ? Do 
you ever buy a penny's worth of candy for the 
ragged boy who is looking at it with eager eyes 
through the shop-window on Christmas eve ? Do 
you take pains now and then to speak a cheery 
word to the widow whose only son has gone on a 
long sea- voyage ? As your sons and daughters ap- 
proach maturity, does their obedience and affection 
increase or diminish ? Do they go out from your 
house as from a prison or from a home, — with 
eager feet indeed, but with a tender lingering at 
the last ? When you come into the house, do you 
bring sunshine with you ? If there is a cloud on 
your brow, do your family seem more anxious to 
dissipate it, or to get out of your way ? If youi 
sons see you on the other side of the street, do they 
run over to join you, or do they turn down an alle^^ 



192 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

to avoid you, or keep on tlieir own side till they 
are obliged to cross ? Do the clerks in your ware- 
house, the carpenters who are building your house, 
the Irishmen who are laying your pipes, the plough- 
man who is furrowing your land, the gardener who 
is pruning your trees, like to have you pass by, for 
the pleasantness of your manner in commending 
their labor, or the courteousness with which you 
listen to their complaints or requests, or the quiet 
consideration with which you suggest alterations 
and improvements ? Do mothers Kke to have 
their sons work on your farm during the summer 
months, and do the boys like to come ? In short, 
are you a comfortable person to live with ? Are 
you pleasant to have about ? 

We often have in the columns of religious news- 
papers sketches of eminent Christians. I read one 
lately of a farmer's wife who used to delight in 
prayer-meetings, celebrated her children's birth- 
days by prayer, and spent whole days in praying. 
All these are favorable signs, but before I pro- 
nounce her an eminent Christian, I should like 
to know whether, previous to her withdrawal from 
the family circle to pray all day, she made any 
provision for the extra labor that her absence 
would devolve on others, or whether Bridget had 
to skim the milk and wash the pans, besides her 
cooking, sweeping, and dusting, or whether the 
work was let go till the next day ; and if so, 
whether the next day went smoothly. I should 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 193 

like to know whether, when a little restless, chub- 
by hand upset the gravy-boat on the clean table- 
cloth, she bound herself over to keep the peace, — 
whether in her house cleanliness was made sub- 
servient to comfort, or comfort to cleanliness, — 
whether she ever laid down her sewing and took 
into her arms the half-sick and wholly cross, fret- 
ful, and miserable four-year-old boy, to charm 
away his unhappiness with a fairy story, or any 
kind of story, or song, or simple talk, — whether 
she gave her heretical neighbor credit for as much 
candor, sincerity, truthfulness, earnestness, and 
unselfishness in his religion as he developed and 
she recognized in his character of citizen, neighbor, 
and father, — whether the delicious green-pea soup 
that she sent in to the sick woman next door was 
the result of an extra amount made for the pur- 
pose, or whether the Irish girl dined per force, 
that day, off cold boiled pork and potatoes, — 
whether she was generally ready to step into the 
wagon when it came to the door on Sunday morn- 
ings, or whether she provoked her husband to 
wrath by keeping them all waiting. 

" The world is wide, these things are small." 

But it was a pebble's edge that ordained the 
course of two mighty rivers, — 

*' One to long darkness and the frozen tide, 
One to the Peaceful Sea." 

The trouble is, that, when you present things in 



194 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

this light, so many people look upon it as a substi- 
tution of morality for religion, — works for faith. 
It is nothing of the sort. It is bringing one along- 
side the other, in which position only are they of 
any use in the world. The black knight swore 
that the shield was gold ; the white knight as 
stoutly maintained that it was silver; but they 
shivered their lances for a half-truth, — for it was 
gold on one side and silver on the other. It is true 
that mere morality does not make a perfect man, for 
we are justified by faith ; but wilt thou not also 
know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead, 
and, of the two, by far the worse oflP? for good 
works may benefit others, though they have no 
beneficial reflex influence, but a dead faith cheer- 
eth the heart of neither God nor man. Faith and 
works are like the two blades of a pair of scissors. 
They must be riveted together in order to accom- 
plish anything for their possessor. Separated, one 
is worth as much as the other, — both good for 
nothing. Truth is many-sided, though always in- 
tegral. God alone can see its sublime integrity, — 
we contemplate it in phases. From too long gaz- 
ing on one, we forget another, and our religion 
becomes one-sided. " Just as if works were any- 
thing ! " a young girl was overheard to say, coming 
out of a prayer-meeting. " Just as if ploughing 
and hoeing and planting and weeding are any- 
thing ! " the farmer might as well say ; " it is rain 
from heaven and dew and sunshine that I want." 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 195 

Very true, but rain and dew and sunshine may 
fall on the plain a thousand years, and never once 
shall his fields wave their silken tassels to the 
breeze, or his barns overflow with garnered grain. 
The sunshine floods in vain the soil that is not pre- 
pared to receive it. No rain can germinate the 
seed that has never been planted. That the one 
is vain without the other, is no truer than that the 
other is vain without the one. Paul presented 
one side of the shield to the Roman disciples, and 
they shut their eyes to the other, — wresting his 
words to their own destruction. But James, just 
as truly inspired as Paul, held up to view the side 
which they ignored, and, with a sturdy common 
sense that scarcely needed any higher wisdom, 
rounded their theory to completion. " What doth 
it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath 
faith, and have not works ? can faith save him ? 
If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of 
daily food, and one of you say unto them. Depart 
in peace, be ye warmed and filled ; notwithstand- 
ing ye give them not those things which are need- 
ful to the body ; what doth it profit ? Even so 
faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 
Yea, a man may say. Thou hast faith, and I have 
works ; show me thy faith without thy works, and 

I will show thee my faith by my works By 

works was faith made perfect By works a 

man is justified, and not by faith only." "• Be- 
lieve in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 



196 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

saved," said Paul, presenting tliat phase of the 
truth that was best fitted to those whom he ad- 
dressed. " The devils also believe and tremble," 
follows up James, throwing himself once more 
into the breach, aad driving back the formalism, 
selfishness, and malice that would march under 
the banner of Paul's succinct w^ords. 

So the Bible balances itself, — repentance unto 
salvation bringing forth fruits meet for repentance. 
It is ours to keep the. balance true, but we do not 
do it. I cannot, of course, speak of the Church 
as a whole, but, so far as it has fallen under my 
observation, I should say that its religion was 
ahead of its morality, — that church-members, as 
a class, perform their distinctively religious duties 
better than the duties w^hich are not distinctively 
religious ; while it seems to me to be of the first 
importance that the morality of the Church should 
keep pace wdth its religion, — that its duties in 
the w^orld, as citizens — merchants, farmers, law- 
yers, mechanics — should be as scrupulously per- 
formed as its duties to itself. If the Church w^ere 
true to her divine calling, the gates of hell should 
not prevail against her. It is because she is false 
to her trust that her chariot-wheels drive heavily. 

Every now and then, some sharp-sighted, keen- 
scented hound sniflPs a heresy, and anon the hunts- 
man puts the bugle to his lips, and all the faithfiil 
are summoned to hunt dowm the game ; but as I 
read history I find that in every age the world has 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 197 

been growing heretical, and that, while some of its 
heresies were heresies indeed, others have been the 
peaceable fruits of righteousness, so that the cry 
has ceased to inspire terror. The name is no long- 
er formidable. The manner in which Paul wor- 
shipped the God of his fathers was heresy to the 
tithe-paying, stiff-necked, hard-hearted Jews, and 
Tertullus, arraigning him before Felix, with self- 
complacent eloquence could find no meeter charac- 
terization than that "pestilent fellow," the "ring- 
leader of the sect of the Nazarenes." To the 
pampered ecclesiastics of the sixteenth century, 
the right of private judgment was a most damnable 
heresy ; and even Sir Thomas More, a man of 
clean hands and a pure heart, who himself dared 
to die for a principle, could earnestly advocate that 
Tyndale be burnt at the stake for the well-being 
of Christ and the Church. For eighteen hundred 
years, the Devil has been crying "Wolf!" and 
there have never been found wanting a great mul- 
titude of foolish, and a small sprinkling of wise 
men, who, untaught by the past, would leave their 
pleasant firesides and rush pell-mell to the rescue ; 
but when the confusion is over, and we come at 
leno;th to the conclusion that we have been im- 
posed upon, and that the death-dealing wolf was 
nothing but a harmless little ewe-lamb, and return, 
somewhat crestfallen, to our homes, we find that 
our crests must fall lower yet, — that we are the 
victims of a double deception, — that while we 



198 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

Ti'ere flourishincr our shillalalis, and Avrenchinoj our 
arms with random blows, right and left, at nothing, 
Satan has walked in at the back door, and helped 
himself, — helped himself to our probity, our cour- 
tesy, our self-command, our uprightness and honor 
and manhood. 

Brethren, these thincrs ouo-ht not so to be. "We 
have been stunned lono; enouo;h with the cry of 
' Gospel, Gospel ! ' we want Gospel manners," — 
and what Erasmus wanted, we want to-day. Half 
of the heresies would die out of themselves, if let 
alone, and a holy life is the best bulwark against 
them all. The worst heresies that I know of — 
those that lay hold of the strength of the Church, 
that tie her hands, and paralyze her tongue, and 
poison her atmosphere — are lying and stealing 
and avarice and selfishness. It is they which eat 
out the heart of Christianity, making that which 
should be the temple of the Lord, wherein all who 
desire to behold his beauty shall inquire, a sepul- 
chre full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. 

Of a surety the Church has a vrork to do, and 
how shall she be straitened till it be accomplished ! 
All who hinder the completion of the work, all 
who weaken the power of the Church, are fight- 
ing against God. But the weakeners of her 
power are from within, not from without. She 
gets a few pricks and scratches from her foes, 
but she receives her severest wounds in the house 
of her friends. Freedom and slavery, activity 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 199 

and stagnation, the Bible and priestcraft, drew 
their swords on the soil of Spain three hun- 
dred years ago ; kingly power and monkish des- 
potism combined to crush out the young truth 
with a success to which three centuries of degra- 
dation bear sorrowful witness. But it is not so 
with us. Our fathers fought the battle, and won 
the victory, before we were born, and we enter 
into their labors. Now, the Church has only to 
arise and shine. The puny adversaries that attack 
her now are not worthy to be compared with the 
giants that were on the earth in those days. If 
she had on the whole armor of God, all the isms 
that hurtle against her would make no more im- 
pression than a child's dimpled fingers on the 
granite shaft of Bunker Hill. She herself fur- 
nishes her enemies with their most effective weap- 
ons. The batteriuiT-rams of Satan would thunder 
at her gates in vain, if traitors within did not sap 
the walls. She would not only hold her own, but 
she would carry the war into the enemy's camp, — 
aggressive, energetic, victorious, — if her rank and 
file were trusty. If you believe Unitarianism or 
Parkerism or Spiritualism to be not of God, show 
by your purer and more benevolent life, by your 
greater truthfulness, your sweeter temper, your 
larger charity, and your stricter horuesty, that the 
word of God has freer course to ran and be Mori- 
fied in your creed than in the other. You may be 
slow of speech and slow of tongue, but nothing 



200 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

can withstand the logic of a manly, blameless, be- 
neficent life. Heresies can be lived down a thou- 
sand times more effectually than they can be 
hunted down. Let every one be able to give a 
reason for the hope that is in him, and then let 
him show out of a good conversation his works 
with meekness of wisdom. 

It cannot be too deeply impressed on our minds 
that it is the good people that do the mischief. If 
villany could only be confined to villains, we should 
not find it so hard to set the world rio;ht. When 
a highway robber plunders a man, or a notorious 
liar tells a lie, or a confirmed miser passes by on 
the other side of suffering, want, and unhappiness, 
we do not feel that Christ has been struck at. 
There is harm done ; sin is committed ; but Chris- 
tianity is not impeached. Rather her hands are 
strengthened. AYe feel more deeply the need 
of some such influence to restrain us from evil. 
It is the sober, loyal, industrious. Sabbath-keep- 
ing, sound-principled, respectable church-member 
whose weaknesses and wickednesses spring up and 
bear fruit an hundred-fold. Every church-member 
who indulges in dishonesty, petulance, niggardli- 
ness, falsehood, wilful ignorance, quarrelsomeness, 
or selfishness, is an active missionary of the Devil, 
and a missionary laboring with every advantage. 

When light is suddenly let in upon the life of a 
blood-stained pirate, the world shudders, — catch- 
ing a glimpse at the abyss Into which man, left of 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 201 

his Maker, may fall, and crime becomes more hate- 
ful than before. But when a statesman, covered 
with years and honors, or a clergyman, who has 
long broken the bread of life to his people, goes 
over to wrong-doing, or to wrong-suffering, moral- 
ity and religion are stabbed ; for not only will 
multitudes be led to go and do likewise, but other 
multitudes, standing afar off, will attribute to Chris- 
tianity the weakness of its professors, and so the 
Son of God is crucified afresh, and put to an open 
shame. When Satan comes with horns and hoof, 
unmitigated and hideous, we are shocked, and flee 
from him ; but when he puts on his robes of light, 
we take him to our hearths and hearts — the dear, 
benevolent, large-brained one — and entertain him 
sumptuously unawares. 

This ought not to be so, but it is so. Men ought 
to judge justly, but they will not. Because a 
church-member is obstinate, stiff-necked, and rebel- 
lious, men ought not to think that the spirit which 
the Gospel inculcates is not gentle and easy to be 
eatreated, but they do. The sin of doing it is 
theirs, but the sin of giving them occasion to do it 
is ours, and no small sin is it, — if any sin can be 
small, — either in its extent or its consequences. 
Practical infidelity in the Church sows theoretical 
infidelity broadcast over the world, — the hideous 
dragon's teeth spring up into strong-armed men 
against the law and the Gospel. 

It would seem as if this truth would be patent to 
9 * 



202- THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

the most unthinking ; but if it is, why is there so 
much defect in our hohest things ? If we know 
that, while there is a sense in which every sin of 
the " unregenerate " is a preacher of Christianity, 
there is no sense in which the sins of the "regen- 
erate " are not a grievous and deadly wound, — if 
we know that, while every sin committed by the 
confessedly unprincipled throws into greater relief 
the purity of the Gospel, and increases our sense 
of its need, every sin committed by the professedly 
principled tends to directly the opposite, — how is 
it that we w^ho profess to have taken Christ into our 
hearts, and to follow those sacred feet through all 
our way, can, not simply fall into sin, but walk 
into it in broad daylight, with both eyes open, and 
stay in it and revel there ? How can we forget 
that the shadow of our sin falls athwart religion, 
and dims the light that should shine upon those 
that sit in darkness ? With what force would not 
the minister's words fall upon the ears of the un- 
repentant, if he could point to his church and say, 
" Behold Israelites indeed, in whom is no guile ! " 
I remember reading a sketch of a young girl 
who, for a long time, resisted almost sullenly the 
advances of her Sabbath-school teacher and friends, 
seemed proof against the influence of the Gospel, 
and, indeed, doubted its genuineness and authentici- 
ty. Years afterward, when she had been brought 
under its power, it was ascertained that the stum- 
bhng-block in her way had been the selfishness 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 203 

and worldliness of an aunt who professed the reh'g- 
ion of Christ, but whose hfe was not conformed to 
its principles. So the young girl judged — not 
alone from hardness of heart, but naturally and 
logically — that religion was an imposture. Her 
reasoning was quite correct, only her premises 
were not true, though they had sufficiently the 
appearance of truth to deceive an older and wiser 
head than hers. By their fruits ye shall know — 
them. By the fruits which religion shows in one 
man, we know the power of religion in one man. 
But she, and many others with her, make the 
mistake of translating Christ to mean, by their 
fruits ye shall know ^^, that is religion. Now, if 
we were in the habit of taking enlarged views, of 
judging justly, of deducing universal conclusions 
only from universal premises, there would be less 
responsibility on individual Christians. The his- 
tory of Christianity, in its inception and progress, 
proves its divine origin and its perfect adequacy ; 
but nineteen men out of twenty never take a com- 
prehensive view of anything. They know little 
or nothing of the working or the spread of Chris- 
tianity. They judge it from what they see of it 
in their grocer and butcher and shoemaker, and 
others with whom they have dealings. True, 
they can and ought to judge it from their Bibles ; 
but the question is not what they ought to do, 
but what they do, and as long as they form their 
opinions from the grocer's life, the grocer is under 



204 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

double bonds to give a true rendering of its prin- 
ciples. 

Here is a member of an Orthodox church " in 
good and regular standing." His place at church 
is seldom vacant. His attendance on prayer- 
meetings is prompt and constant. He lifts up his 
voice in prayer and exhortation, tells what the 
Lord has done for him, would on no account walk 
or ride on Sunday, except from necessity, scarcely 
even from mercy, has an acute sense of moral re- 
sponsibility, and professes to desire to speak and 
write only what will be for the glory of God and 
the good of souls. Near by lives a woman, a wid- 
owed wife, who, in the abandonment of her sor- 
row, has neglected to perform a usual courtesy 
towards him, — wliich omission, by vigorous effort, 
may be twisted into a culpable indifference to re- 
ligion, but which has really no more connection 
with religion than has the rising of the sun or the 
falling of the dew. There are several things which 
he can do. He can say, " This woman is crushed 
by grief and overwhelmed by cares to which she is 
unaccustomed. It would be unworthy in me at 
such a time to notice so slight a matter." Or he 
might say, " This is too important a thing to be 
allowed to pass silently. I will ascertain whether 
my suspicions be correct, and if so, I will, at a fit- 
ting time, gently advise, and suggest whether duty 
do not point out a different course." Not so. 
He does what looks very much like soothing his 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 205 

wounded and inordinate self-love with the idea of 
doing God service, assumes the worst possible mo- 
tives for the trivial act, so turning a sorrowful, 
momentary forgetfulness towards himself into a 
deliberate sin against God, and smites with crue^ 
reproaches, harder in her condition to bear than 
blows, one whom God has already sorely smitten. 

Here is another man who is not a Christian. 
He scarcely believes in moral accountability. He* 
seldom goes to meeting unless there is a prospect 
of unusually fine singing. He generally stops at 
home on Sunday, w^rites letters, reads the news- 
papers, has a jovial dinner, drives a spart of fine 
horses, smokes half a dozen cigars or so, and loun- 
ges generally. He is too gentlemanly to swear, 
unless he is very much excited. He drinks wine, 
but seldom loses in it his self-control, — becomes 
animated, but not boisterous. He is waited on one 
day by a man of noble character, but wanting in 
what we Yankees call " faculty." This man's af- 
fairs are entangled beyond his own power to extri- 
cate them. An able but unscrupulous person is 
attempting, with every prospect of success, to wrest 
from him his little property, and he, being acciden- 
tally thrown in with my pleasant pagan friend, 
applies to him for counsel. My friend is not a 
lawyer. His profession, which is active and ex- 
acting, removes him entirely from that sphere of 
life ; but he is clear-headed, — a man of great 
practical sagacity, great common-sense. He is 



206 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

moved by the calamity that threatens an innocent, 
brave, though " incapable " man. He knows that 
a lawyer's fee would exhaust a large portion of the 
poor man's estate. He sees the direction in which 
steps ought to be taken. He leaves his own busi- 
ness to his own hurt. He takes up the cause of 
the poor man, heads off his opponent, clears away 
the rubbish, works through a whole summer till 
the poor man's rights are triumphantly established, 
and his small property restored to him beyond 
danger of alienation, and then goes home without 
one cent of fee, with no reward save the gratitude 
of the man and his family who have been saved 
from penury, and takes up again the broken thread 
of his own business. 

In the light of the Divine precept, " Bear ye 
one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of 
Christ," which of these men went down to his 
house justified ? 

We, who are large-minded and wise, are not 
deceived in this thing. We know that, though 
religion may adorn and illuminate a one-story 
house, it can never make it a two-story house. 
We know that the first man was essentially nar- 
row-minded and petty, and that religion may have 
expanded him, though it had not made him great. 
We know that the leaven of love may have been 
in his heart, though it had not yet leavened the 
whole lump ; that his short-comings may not 
have been because the good work was not begun 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

in him, but because it was not finished, and tt 
this particular short-coming was in a quarter th. 
the Gospel had not reached ; that he was not ne- 
cessarily, nor even probably, utterly hypocritical 
in his prayers, praises, and professions, because he 
had showed himself in this respect utterly selfish ; 
that religion is not an imposition because here it 
had left him in the lurch. We know, too, that 
the second man started in advance. He was or- 
ganized with a larger heart. He had by nature 
what the other will hardly attain by grace, and, 
even with that advantage, his generosity would 
never have attained so rich a growth had it not 
struck root in a soil mellowed through no in- 
tervention of his, by the culture of eighteen cen- 
turies, and opened in the reflected beams of the 
Sun of Righteousness, which shines alike upon the 
evil and the good. We know that his natural 
kindliness has been fostered by the genial atmos- 
phere that wrapped him about unconscious, and 
that it would have borne still fairer fruit had he 
but suffered the dews of Divine love to penetrate 
to the roots. We know all this, and are in no 
danger of deeming religion a deception on the one 
side or a superfluity on the other. 

But your clerk, wTio is an observant, though 
necessarily from his years an inexperienced young 
man, does not think of all this. He sees only the 
expressed premise, and he judges therefrom. He 
sees the irreligious man fulfilling the law of Christ, 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

1 the relioious man breakino; it. He sees the 

e performing an act which commands his high- 

st admiration, and the other guilty of a meanness 

7hich excites his severest contempt ; nor does 

he rehojious indifference of the one, or the reho;- 

lous zeal of the other, seem to. be at all affected 

by it, or in any way related to it. What shall he 

infer ? What will he probably, or at any rate, 

what is there dano;er that he will infer ? 

I am aware that I am not on the highest ground, 
but it is not low. To lead an upright life because 
our neighbors are looking at us, is less noble than 
to do it because God wills it. The latter is a suf- 
ficient reason for the practice of every virtue ; yet 
if the former, from its constant presence and defi- 
niteness, will stir us up by way of remembrance, 
when the latter is momentarily forgotten, we 
need not despise it from the heights of our lofti- 
ness. If, beyond this, we are incited by the desire 
to benefit our brother, to guide him to the right 
way by keeping our own light burning brightly, 
to ^vin him to the Gospel by showing him into 
how fair a shape the Gospel has carved our own 
hves, — then, indeed, though we be not on the 
highest ground, we are but little lower than the 
angels. 

Every one who subscribes with his hand unto 
the Lord ought to understand — and if he does not 
understand, his spiritual teachers should instruct 
him — that on his Mondays and Tuesdays and 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 209 

Wednesdays and Thursdays and Fridays and Sat- 
urdays, on the market-days and quarter-days and 
hohdays and baking-days and washing-days and 
sweeping-days, on the spring sales and the win- 
ter's sledding, on the fall sewing and the summer 
picnics, on the morning prayers and the evening 
parties, should be inscribed, Holiness unto the 
Lord! 

Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not 
defile himself with the king's meat and wine, 
thinking that pulse was better, and they tried him 
for ten days with pulse. If at the end of that time 
he had exhibited shrunken cheeks, thin lips, cav- 
ernous eyes, and a general leanness in his bones, 
it would have furnished but a poor argument in 
favor of his vegetarian diet ; but when, at the end 
of ten days, his countenance appeared fairer and 
fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat 
the portion of the king's meat, there was no more 
trouble about it. He had his pulse and welcome. 
His looks were an argument which nothing could 
gainsay or resist. 

So, when the presidents and princes, moved with 
envy because Daniel had been preferred above 
them, sought to find occasion against him concern- 
ing the kingdom, they could find none occasion nor 
fault ; forasmuch as he was faithful^ neither was 
there any error or fault found in him : and in de- 
spair they exclaimed, " We shall not find any 
occasion against this Daniel, except we find it 

N 



210 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

against him concerning the law of his God." 
Daniel's courageous devotion would never have 
been handed down for the world's admiration and 
imitation, if the presidents and princes could have 
discovered a flaw in Daniel's account-book, an 
attempt to embezzle the fiinds, a neglect of the 
material interests of the kingdom, or a conspiracy 
against the king's life. 

The religion that the world is dying for is not a 
treasure, valued and cherished, indeed, but cher- 
ished under a glass case in the best room, carefully 
dusted, and visible only on days of high festival. 
We want a religion that is an atmosphere, wrap- 
ping us about above and below ; going down into 
the lungs in deep-drawn inspirations, to purify and 
energize ; filtering into the blood, .to tint and 
quicken ; spreading out in the skin, to protect 
and adorn ; piercing noisome cellars to dispel the 
noxious, death-dealing vapors ; mounting into the 
parlors and bed-rooms and kitchens, to keep them 
sweet and healthful ; permeating and interpene- 
trating all things ; a savor of life unto life. 

We want a religion that softens the step, and 
tones the voice to melody, and fills the eye with 
sunshine, and checks the impatient exclamation 
and the harsh rebuke ; a religion that is polite, 
deferential to superiors, courteous to inferiors, and 
considerate of friends ; a religion that goes into 
the family, and keeps the husband from being 
spiteful when the dinner is late, and keeps the din- 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 211 

ner from being late, — keeps the wife from fretting 
when the husband tracks the newly washed floor 
with his muddy boots, and makes the husband 
mindful of the scraper and the door- mat, — keeps 
the mother patient when the baby is cross, and 
keeps the baby pleasant, — amuses the children as 
well as instructs them, — wins as well as governs, 
— cares for the servants, besides paying them 
promptly, — projects the honey-moon into the har- 
vest-moon, and makes the happy home like the 
Eastern fig-tree, bearing in its bosom at once the 
beauty of the tender blossom and the glory of the 
ripened fruit ; a religion that looks after the appren- 
tice in the shop, and the clerk behind the counter, 
and the student in the office, with a fatherly care 
and a motherly love, — setting the solitary in fam- 
ilies, introducing' them to pleasant and wholesome 
society, that their lonely feet may not be led into 
temptation, forgiving occasional lapses while striv- 
ing to prevent them, and to supply, so far as may 
be, the place of the natural guardians by a vigi- 
lance that attracts without annoying. 

We want a religion that shall interpose contin- 
ually between the ruts and gullies and rocks of the 
highway of life, and the sensitive souls that are 
travelling over them. 

We want a religion that bears heavily, not only 
on the " exceeding sinfulness of sin," but on the 
exceeding rascality of lying and stealing, — a re- 
ligion that banishes short measures from the coun- 



212 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE, 

ters, small baskets from the stalls, pebbles from the 
cotton-bags, clay from paper, sand from sugar, 
chicory from coffee, otter from butter, flour from 
cream of tartar, beet-juice fr^om vinegar, alum from 
bread, strychnine from vyine, water from milk-cans, 
and buttons from the contribution-box. The re- 
ligion that is to save the world will not put all the 
big strawberries at the top, and all the bad ones 
at the bottom. It will sell raisins on stems, instead 
of stems without raisins. It will not offer more 
baskets of foreign wines than the vineyards ever 
produced bottles, and more barrels of Genesee flour 
than all the wheat-fields of New York grow and 
all her mills grind. It will not make one half of 
a pair of shoes of good leather, and the other of 
poor leather, so that the first shall redound to the 
maker's credit, and the second to his cash ; nor, if 
the shoes have been promised on Thursday morn- 
ing, will it let Thursday morning spin out till Sat- 
urday night. It will not put Jouvin's stamp on 
Jenkins's kid gloves ; nor make Paris bonnets in 
the back room of a Boston milliner's shop ; nor let 
a piece of velvet, that professes to measure twelve 
yards, come to an untimely end in the tenth ; or a 
spool of sewing-silk, that vouches for twenty yards, 
be nipped in the bud at fourteen and a half ; nor 
the cotton-thread spool break, to the yard-stick, fifty 
of the two hundred yards of promise that was given 
to the eye ; nor yard-wide cloth measure less than 
thirty-six inches from selvage to selvage ; nor 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE, 213 

all-wool delaines and all-linen handkerchiefs be 
amalgamated with clandestine cotton ; nor water- 
proof cloaks be soaked through in an hour; nor 
coats made of old woollen rags pressed together be 
sold to an unsuspecting public for legal broadcloth. 
It does not put bricks at five dollars per thousand 
into chimneys which it contracted to build of seven- 
dollar materials ; nor smuggle white pine into 
floors that have paid for hard pine ; nor leave 
yawning cracks in closets where boards ought to 
join ; nor daub ceilings that ought to be smoothly 
plastered ; nor make window-blinds with slats that 
cannot stand the wind, and paint that cannot stand 
the sun, and fastenings that may be looked at, but 
are on no account to be touched. It does not send 
the little boy, who has come for the daily quart of 
milk, into the barn-yard to see the calf, and seize 
the opportunity to skim off the cream ; nor does 
it surround stale butter with fresh, and sell the 
whole for good ; nor pass off the slack-baked bread 
upon the stable-boy ; nor dust the pepper ; nor 
" deacon " the apples. It does not put cotton 
gathering- threads into the skirt, to succumb on 
the slightest provocation ; nor content itself with 
fastening seams at the beginning and the end, 
trusting to Providence for the security of the in- 
termediate stacres. 

The religion that is to sanctify the world pays 
its debts. It does not borrow money with little or 
no prospect of repayment, but concealing or gloss- 



214 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

ing over the fact. It does not consider that forty 
cents returned for one hundred cents given is ac- 
cording to Gospel, though it may be according to 
law. It looks upon a man who has failed in trade, 
and who continues to live in luxury, as a thief. It 
looks upon a man who promises to pay fifty dollars 
on demand with interest, and who neglects to pay 
it on demand with or without interest, as a liar. 

I believe more sin has been committed by non- 
payment or tardy payment of debts than by any 
heresy that the world ever heard of. The indiffer- 
ence of some professing Christians on this subject 
is astonishing. It would seem as if they did not 
recognize any moral obligation whatever in respect 
of their debts. There are, of course, many differ- 
ent classes of non-paying debtors. There are, 
doubtless, men who take advantage of " the times " 
to cheat. Under cover of money pressure they 
stop payment to their creditors when the state of 
their business does not demand it. They trust 
that their individual short-comino;s will be attribut- 
ed to the universal panic ; and the money which 
of right belongs to their clerks, or other employes 
or creditors, is devoted to that interesting tonsorial 
operation known as " shaving notes." There are 
others who seem to " fail " systematically. It is a 
regular, periodical part of their business arrange- 
ment, and by long practice they attain a " strange 
alacrity in sinking." Of such I do not speak. 
The Spirit of the Lord can probably touch the 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 215 

men who have turned their consciences into a com- 
mercial barometer, a bank-note detector, and who 
worship a golden calf; but they certainly present 
a very discouraging field for human effort. Nor 
do I refer to those who nobly struggle and bravely 
fall, — who, in their counting-rooms and over their 
ledgers, make as heroic a stand and as manly a 
fight as any Leonidas at Thermopylse, and who 
fall at last, not through weakness or fear or treach- 
ery, but overpowered by the inexorable " logic of 
events." I refer now to you, who are a member, 
in good and regular standing, of the first or the 
fiftieth Congregational Church in Boston, or else- 
where, — you who are liberal in your expenditures, 
generous in your gifts, kind, genial, popular, and 
well beloved. You are an excellent man in a gen- 
eral way, but I have somewhat against you. The 
hire of the laborer which is of you kept back by 
fraud, crieth. By fraud ? Yes, by fraud. It is 
a harsh word, but an honest. You take your fam- 
ily out to a sleigh-ride, and have never paid the 
man who mended the sleigh after it was broken in 
your previous ride. You have no account with 
him. It was a mere trifle, — a trifle to you, and 
perhaps a trifle to him ; but the trifle is his, not 
yours, and you retain it unjustly and unrighteous- 
ly. He does not like to ask you for the sum, it is 
so small, and you told him you had not the change 
at the time, but you would make it all right. Why 
do you not make it all right ? 



216 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE, 

Why do you not, madam, pay the man who has 
been giving your daughter French and German 
lessons now these two quarters? He is an exile, 
a nobleman, a man of education and refinement 
(though that does not affect the fact of your in- 
debtedness). He cannot bring himself to ask you 
for the money which is justly his due. But his 
wife and his little boys are to be provided for. 
His pupils are few, and he can with difficulty make 
both ends meet even when every link is in the 
chain ; but when your link is missing, the case is 
indeed discouraging. Why do you not pay him ? 
You have not the money by you? But you have 
everything you need, and a great many things that 
you do not need. If you cannot afford to pay 
him, why did you engage him ? Can he afford to 
give lessons that you cannot afford to buy ? Sell 
your watch, sell your bracelets, and pay him. 
Pay him now, if you pay at all. It is his. From 
the moment the money was due him it was his, 
and every moment since that time you have been 
retaining another's property, and you are an ex- 
tortioner and unjust. It is no matter whether you 
know that he stands in need of it or not, — or even 
whether he does stand in need of it. That is none 
of your business. You did not engage to pay him 
so much if he needed it ; but so much. No per- 
son is so rich that he does not want to be paid 
what is due him, and when it is due. You have 
no right to assume that your creditor is richer than 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 217 

you, or Leyond want, and therefore you need not 
be particular about promptness. You do not know 
the actual state of the case, and if you did it is 
nothing to the purpose. Pay what you owe. Did 
you forget it ? Then go at once and make every- 
thing square, beg his pardon, and pray to the Lord, 
if perhaps the selfish thoughtlessness of your heart 
may be forgiven you. 

You, high-spirited friend, who are always a vic- 
tim to the " laws of trade," you are the man. 
You fancy yourself to be one of those lofty souls 
who soar above tne sordid many. You' have no 
accumulative faculty. You are perpetually in pe- 
cuniary trouble, simply because you have a proud 
disdain, a sublime incapacity, for accounts. Your 
generous indifference is the seal of your genius. 
Do you know that you are intolerably mean ? 
Your grand scorn of money brings you into straits, 
to get out of which you do things which the nar- 
row-souled, calculating Yankee neighbor, whom 
you despise, would blush to think of. This is one 
thing you did. When your friend asked you to get 
his fifty-dollar check cashed for him at the bank, 
you did so ; but returned him only forty-five dollars, 
remarking, in your careless, off-hand, jovial way, 
that you had " retained a V for commission fee." 
Here is another thing you did, — borrowed a dollar 
of your seamstress to pay a little bill that was pre- 
sented when she was by, and never returned it, — 
and never will ; and you do not call yourself mean I 

10 



218 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE, 

That generosity which is generous to itself and 
its family, and forgetful of or unjust to others, is 
of a very suspicious and exasperating character. 
One man would like summer drives and holiday 
journeys as well as another. He would like to 
dress his children prettily, and give them toys at 
Christmas, and lighten his wife's labors, and re- 
lieve the poor, as well as another ; and it cannot 
be pleasant to him to see the other doing all these 
fine things, and know the while that that other 
owes him money which he neglects to pay, and 
which, paid, would furnish him with more than 
one of these comforts which he is now forced to 
deny himself. And though a sparkling wit, a 
bright smile, and a ready sympathy may hide or 
veil the meanness, the meanness is none the less 
there. Selfishness will not take the trouble to be 
careful about little things, to deny itself pleasant 
things, to think of unattractive things, to plan 
about commonplace things, and so it rides gayly 
over its own duties, and wickedly lays on others' 
shoulders the burden which itself will not move 
with so much as one of its fingers. Such high- 
mindedness " smells to heaven." 

Men and brethren, pay your little debts. If 
you will cheat, cheat sublimely, like Fowler and 
Floyd, but do not attempt to ride two horses at 
once, by sustaining on one side the character of a 
high-minded Christian citizen, and on the other 
that of a petty purloin er. 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 219 

There is another sin, near of kin to the forego- 
ing, which ought to he more heavily than it does 
on the conscience of the Church, — not that the 
Church monopohzes the guilt, but she is stained 
by it, and deeply stained. I mean the non-fulfil- 
ment of engagements. You can scarcely offer a 
grosser insult to a person than to accuse him of 
falsehood, yet the chances that he will tell a false- 
hood are fearfully large. Not that society in general 
is wholly addicted to manufacturing stories " out of 
whole cloth." A very large proportion will ad- 
here to facts with tolerable closeness in detailing 
their observation or experience ; but the number 
of whom, in making business arrangements, it can 
be said that their word is as good as their bond, 
is very small, — if their bond is good enough to 
be taken without a surety. It might be more 
gracious, and perhaps more correct, to put it a lit- 
tle differently, and say that the number of those 
whose word is not as good as their bond is very 
large. 

It is strange that the interests of men, apart 
from moral considerations, should not make them 
more careful to keep their engagements. In some 
acceptations it is absolutely essential, and in all it 
must be profitable. The merchant, the railroad 
conductor, the expressman, the postmaster, would 
soon find their occupation gone, if they allowed it 
such " loose ends " as many others do. For ex- 
ample, your new house is to be ready for you 



220 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

by Thanksgiving ; but if you get into it by New 
Year's, you will do well. It is true, unexpect- 
ed hinderances arise. Contingencies which the 
builder could not foresee have prevented its com- 
pletion, and he is not at fault. But the wonder 
is that unexpected contingencies arise with such a 
remarkable regularity that one scarcely expects 
his house to be done at the time agreed upon. 
Again, your little boy is anxiously waiting his 
first pair of boots. By special contract they are 
to be sent home on Wednesday, so that his half- 
holiday may be made glorious. But the half- 
holiday drags drearily by in old shoes, and when 
the boots will come home " God and the shoe- 
maker alone know," as a little boy once despair- 
ingly said, in such a case. Your little daughter's 
cloak: is to be finished on Friday, to make sure of 
her having it for Sunday. Saturday morning you 
call and beg the dress-maker to report progress. 
It will be ready for you in the afternoon. At 
seven P. M. you call again, and by waiting two 
hours in your carriage, on a frosty night, you get 
it to bring home, with the seams yet rough, and 
the cape half sewed. The artist who furnishes 
the illustrations for your monthly magazine sol- 
emnly affirms that he will have them completed 
in time for a seasonable issue. By dogging him 
morning, noon, and night, you get your magazine 
out a week after the proper time, and after your 
table is loaded with letters informing you that tho 



THU PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 221 

writer's February number has not been received, 
and begging to know why. You are going down 
to the annual meeting of the Tract Society to re- 
port the proceedings for your paper. You meet a 
friend who says he is going, and offers to report 
for you. That is the last you hear of him, and 
your paper goes to press without the report. A 
load of coal is to be brought on Tuesday, and it 
comes on Thursday. Your " country cousins " 
are to visit you " the first of next week," and you 
are kept at home from a pleasant party by their 
coming down upon you on Friday. Your friend 
is to call for you at half past six, and he comes 
lounging along at seven. 

This is all wrong. A good business character 
and a good Christian character require that we 
should meet our engagements. Unnecessary fail- 
ure is alike unthrifty and sinful. If we are so 
unfortunately constituted that we cannot recollect 
our promises, we ought not to make them. Say 
frankly, " I will do it if I do not forget ; but the 
chances are that I shall forget." Then make an 
effort to remember. A great deal of our memory, 
bad and good, has its seat in the heart. Love thy 
neighbor as thyself, and thou wilt not forget thy 
neighbor's parcel any sooner than thine own. It 
is selfishness that gnaws holes in our memories. 
We will not take the trouble to try to remem- 
ber, and so we cause our friends great incon- 
venience, and injure our own souls. But many 



222 THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 

forget their own affairs witli great regularity. 
They are as great a trouble to themselves as 
they are to others. To such, one can only recom- 
mend constant effort to overcome an inconvenient 
habit, and constant scrupulousness in making en- 
gagements. Let them always make it clearly 
understood that they are not to be depended 
on, and so avoid the appearance of evil. Let 
tradesmen promise less recklessly. If they have 
already engaged to finish by Saturday as much 
work as they can finish, let them not engage to do 
more. It is both a wrong and a bad policy. If 
they state their inability, the work may go to a 
rival establishment ; but if they deceive, somebody 
will be, not only disappointed, but exasperated, and 
they will have a poor chance of a second job from 
the same quarter. Extraordinary skill in work- 
manship can stand such strains awhile, but the 
conscience suffers irremediably. If a carpenter 
does not know that, so far as his plans are con- 
cerned, he can begin a barn on the first of March, 
let him not engage to begin it then. If it is con- 
tingent on the completion of another job, let him 
mention such contingency. The carpenter may 
lose money, but the man will gain manhood. 
If it is doubtful whether the tailor can finish the 
coat in season, let him state the doubt. His 
neighbor may get the job, but he will keep his 
word. 

Let the world do as it may, the Church should 



THE PROOF OF YOUR LOVE. 223 

free its skirts from such sins. If pecuniary inter- 
ests are not strong enough to keep us in the right 
path, rehgious interests should be. All these 
things come within the scope of religion. The 
Christian name should be a tower of strength. It 
should stand for probity, integrity, truth, and 
honor. But the matter rests with us. 

Religion will do for us just what we will it to 
do, and let it do. If we are content to be 
furbished for Sundays with an additional coating 
of respectability ; if, when our names are en- 
rolled on the church hsts, we consider ourselves 
booked for heaven, with nothing further to do 
than show our tickets at the stations ; if we look 
upon religion as something to be adopted, and 
whose adoption keeps us from going to balls and 
theatres, reading immoral books, driving and walk- 
ing on Sunday, and using profane language, then 
religion will do this for us, and nothing more. 
But if we stop here, we come sadly short of the 
glory of God. Stop here we shall, unless we 
press with determined purpose towards the mark 
for the prize of a higher calling. Religion will 
not come down into our lives, purifying, refining, 
softening, elevating, making every day beautiful, 
every house the gate of heaven, every body a 
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, 
unless we bring it down. 



VIII. 



CONTROVERSIES. 




T is not religion that gets into religious 
newspapers now and then, and looks 
and acts so much like slander, spite, 
hatred, envy, malice, and all uncharita- 
bleness, that, if we did not know, we should cer- 
tainly christen it by such names ; nor is it religion 
that creeps into the churches, and sows seeds of 
dissension, which spring up and bear fruit a thou- 
sand-fold, in ex parte councils, seceding cliques, 
angry minorities, insolent majorities, degrading 
rivalries, heart-burnings, and jealousies. Exam- 
ining some issues of the " religious press," and 
observing the charges and refutations, the crim- 
inations and recriminations of religious men and 
religious bodies, one feels constrained to cry out 
imploringly : 

" Let dogs delight to hark and hite, 
For God hath made them so ; 
Let bears and lions growl and fight, 
For 't is their nature, too : 



CONTROVERSIES. 225 

** But children, you should never let 
Your angry passions rise ; 
Your little hands were never made 
To tear each other's eyes." 

The acerbity and violence of religious contro- 
versies, botli in respect of doctrine and of fact, 
are proverbial, and no wonder ; but should it be 
so ? Is the thing inevitable ? Is it essential to 
the preservation of the truth in its purity ? Stag- 
nant waters are indeed apt to be muddy, but does 
stirring them up with a pole, necessarily cleanse 
them? Is it any excuse to allege that religion 
is of paramount importance, and therefore men 
ought to understand it right, and therefore, if they 
will not comprehend it by fair means, they shall 
by foul, and therefore we will 

" Prove our doctrines Orthodox 
By apostolic blows and knocks " ? 

Shall a man take his theology as the homesick 
alligator at the Aquarial Gardens was forced to 
take his food, — by having it rammed down his 
throat ? We should scarcely attempt to proselyte 
our Universalist neighbors by going to the school- 
house where they are assembled to worship, and 
breaking the windows. We know very well that 
those are not the kind of stones in which men 
look to find sermons. Nor do we consider the 
Mohammedan method of propagating religion, by 
fire and sword, as altogether unexceptionable ; 
yet there are words harder than stone, fiercer than 

10* o 



226 CONTROVERSIES. 

fire, sharper than a sword, — and we too often 
use them with unsparing hand, instead of putting 
on the breastplate of love, and walking in wisdom 
towards them that are without. 

The worst feature of religious controversies is 
the undignified, unmanly, and unchristian per- 
sonalities in which opponents sometimes indulge. 
Very angry small boys, being afraid to attack the 
big boys who have roused their indignation, will 
occasionally take refuge in distance, and find con- 
solation in " making faces " at the enemy. So 
we, being unhappily debarred from the privilege 
of burnmg our antagonists at the stake, stretch- 
ing them on the rack, or breaking them on the 
wheel, betake ourselves to the newspapers, and 
call names. What good does it do anybody ? 
We are like children, pounding the stone that 
made us stumble and fall. Our fists tingle and 
redden and smart, but the stone bears it with 
great equanimity. It does not require genius, 
or wit, or character, or eminent piety, to make and 
string epithets, though it does require all these to 
apply them in all cases justly. A blind fit of anger 
will manufacture them in unlimited quantity, and 
anger is not carefiil to ascertain whether they fit 
or not. Personalities, so far from strengthening 
a cause, almost mvariably indicate and increase 
weakness. Luther did not thrust the table-cloth 
in the face of his opponent till he had exhausted 
his arguments. It was the Epicureans and Stoics, 



CONTROVERSIES. 227 

standing on the crumbling ruins of an effete su- 
perstition, that rudely asked, " What will this 
habhler say?" but Paul's address to the gay Athe- 
nians was a model of high-bred courtesy. His 
feet were on the Rock of Ages, and he could 
afford to maintain intact 

" The grand old name of gentleman." 

Nay, even Michael the archangel, when, contend- 
ing with the Devil, he disputed about the body of 
Moses, durst not bring a railing accusation, though, 
if the character of the parties concerned would 
ever justify it, that would certainly seem to have 
been the time. In one respect, at least, religious 
controversialists would do well to copy political. 
Parliamentary courtesy confines itself to acts. It 
forbids inquiry into motives. A Representative 
in Congress, who would not hesitate to accuse his 
colleague of constructive treason, would by no 
means yield to the temptation of asserting or in- 
timating that he had inaugurated a measure, or 
introduced a bill, or advocated a reform, for the 
sake of making himself popular at home, and se- 
curing votes at the next election. But theological 
and ecclesiastical courtesy is less scrupulous, and 
many disputants rush in where statesmen fear to 
tread. Motives are attributed with a lavish gener- 
osity. Facts are asserted to have been suppressed, 
quotations garbled, insignificant and impromptu 
opinions lifted into undue and deceptive promi- 



228 CONTROVERSIES. 

nence, for the sake of making out a case. Yet it 
can easily be seen that the rule of parliamentary 
courtesy is based on common-sense grounds, — 
has its foundations in human nature. We must 
be ignorant of motives in a great degree. We 
cannot know, however strongly we may suspect, 
or however logically we may infer, the reason 
why a man goes to the right instead of the left. 
The probabilities are generally so arranged that 
we can judge with sufficient accuracy for all ordi- 
nary purposes ; and as things go, we are forced 
in our daily life to act with reference to motives 
whose existence we can only assume. Yet when 
we come to the point, so inexplicable is the human 
heart, so intricate are its workings, and so momen- 
tous the issues involved, that etiquette does well 
to step in and diminish the mischief which Chris- 
tianity is not allowed to prevent. Surely polite- 
ness should not be suffered to do for statesmen 
more than Christianity does for Christians. 

I see no irreverence, but rather an appreciation 
of the truest, noblest, and holiest meaning of a 
most ill-used word, in the often quoted lines of 
the old dramatist Dekker, who, speaking of Christ, 
says: 

" The best of men 
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer : 
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit, 
The first true gentleman that ever breathed." 

In many of the accusations, concerning both 

motive and action, which we bring against our 



CONTROVERSIES. 229 

bretliren, I do not think we can be at heart sin- 
cere. The allegations are so grievous, that, if we 
believed them as thoroughly as our statements in- 
dicate, and as we perhaps think we do, we could 
hardly help putting on sackcloth and sitting in 
ashes. 

There is a peculiar liberty wherewith members 
of Congress make themselves free. In their de- 
liberations you shall hear such words as liar., mur- 
derer., incendiary., assassin, applied with a frequen- 
cy, pointedness, and enthusiasm very terrifying to 
Northerners, who have been accustomed to under- 
stand the word murderer to mean one who has 
killed a man with malice aforethought ; assassin, 
one who has murdered in the dark ; liar, one who 
tells lies ; incendiary, one who sets buildings on 
fire. If, however, you bring these wordy war- 
riors to the point, you will find that their words 
have a certain derived, political, Pickwickian 
sense, entirely beyond the scope of unpolitical 
understandings, and are used merely to illustrate 
an argument, to enforce a principle, and quite 
probably simply to adorn a tale. Your contempt- 
ible scoundrel, your black-hearted traitor, is a 
quiet, respectable man, — a colonel, a lawyer, 
perhaps even an ex-Governor, — a man who 
is thought a good deal of by his neighbors and 
townsmen, whose wife dotes on him, who goes out 
in broad daylight, unarmed, fearless of policemen, 
and next whom you have yourself sat . at dinner^ 



230 CONTROVERSIES. 

cliatting agreeably, without a suspicion that his 
vile soul was insecurely linked to one questionable 
vii'tue, and indissolublj riveted to a thousand fear- 
ful crimes. 

So we sometimes see religious newspapers charg- 
ing each other with acts which should exclude the 
perpetrators from the fraternity of honest men ; 
or, through the medium of religious newspapers, 
one church, or one fraction of a church, or one 
ecclesiastical body, or one member of it, accuses 
another of an act, or a course of action, which, in 
sober truth, amounts to nothing more or less than 
obvious, persistent deception, dishonesty, trickery. 
Though we do not, like our Congressional contemr 
poraries, speak the names of these various sins and 
crimes, we just as really attribute them to om' breth- 
ren. Translate out of the language of the church 
into the language of the world, — substitute in- 
voices, notes, and stocks for platforms, resolutions, 
and contributions, — and you have as fine a hst 
of state-prison offences as is often seen outside of 
a court-room. 

Can such be correct transcripts of facts ? Is it 
true that a church, or any body corporate, whose 
very existence as such is professedly to cultivate 
and disseminate the principles of sound morality 
and true reho-ion, does fall so far short of the faith 
dehvered to the saints, — does so far forget its 
origin, and pervert its aims, — as to violate com- 
mon law and common honesty, and persist in its 



CONTROVERSIES. 231 

violation, deliberately, against repeated remon- 
strances, by sheer force ? Yet we see no convul- 
sion in the community. Nothing intimates that a 
great grief is fallen upon Israel. Everybody eats, 
drinks, and sleeps as usual. The pulpits still stand, 
and the law and the Gospel are appealed to from 
that vantage-ground. The sacramental cup is 
still raised to devout lips. The gray heads of the 
culprits still go in and out among the people with 
no diminishing of honor. No odium is attached to 
their persons ; no stigma to their names. What 
a state of things does this argue ! A whole church 
plunges into darkness, and the 

*' majestic heaven 
Shines not the less for that one vanished star." 

Can we wonder that the world will not let itself 
be converted ? To what should it be converted 
if it were willing ? Would it be an advance for 
a community that sends its thieves to prison when 
it catches tjiem, to merge itself in a community that 
is content to print a few columns of expose on the 
subject? If the stream where you wish to drink 
is muddy, you will scarcely find clear waters by 
descending. You want to go up, not down ; up 
on the high lands, where threads of crystal cleave 
the gray old rocks, and gather purity from the 
earth's deep bosom and the sky's clear blue. 

If it is not so, if the acts only appear dishonest 
because we are looking at bne side, why do we 
not say so, or why do we say anything about it ? 



232 CONTROVERSIES. 

Every man is to be held innocent till lie is proved 
guilty. If there is any stand-point from which we 
can view our opponent's position, and find it not 
dishonest, we ought to mention it. We have no 
right to look. at him from a stand-point, and hold 
him up to view as a criminal, and ignore another, 
from which he may be seen as simply mistaken, 
or deceived, or blameless. Still less have we 
a right to take innocent facts and construct upon 
them a guilty hypothesis to suit our foregone con- 
clusion. A right to do it ? It is sin. It is more 
than murder. It may rob a man of what is more 
precious to him than his life. It attempts to take 
away from a man what, taken, would leave him 
stripped of his manhood, and a man's manhood 
is worth more to him and his friends than his bone 
and muscle. I just now heard one Christian man 
say that he did not believe another Christian man 
would do a certain thing. He had asserted that 
he w^ould do it. He had induced others to change 
their course of action by the assertion. He would 
defraud scores of people by not doing it. He 
had given, as was confessed, no slightest sign 
that he would not do it. The time appointed 
for the fulfilment of his engagement was far 
off. He was a man who, though cordially dis- 
liked by some, was as cordially loved by others, 
— a man who stood high in the esteem of intel- 
lectual men and eminent Christians. A neglect 
to perform his promise would make him what the 



CONTROVERSIES. 233 

world calls a rogue, a swindler, a rascal. Yet 
lightly, able to assign no single reason, a Christian 
man could and did imply all this against him. He 
probably did not mean all this, but his words 
meant it, and so any uninterested and casual 
listener could hardly help understanding them to 
mean. 

A little incident fell under my notice a few days 
ago, which may be worth recording, not on its own 
account, but as an illustration of the way things 
happen. 

Two women were chatting together of pies, 
puddings, and preserves, as is the manner of 
women, and presently fell to comparing notes as 
to tomatoes, — both were fond of them, — " ex- 
cellent preserves," — " How much sugar do you 
use ? " " After all, I like them best raw, sliced, 
with pepper and vinegar." " Why /never heard 
of any one's eating them that way." " O, it's very 
common. Did you have any difficulty in planting 
them ? " " No, we put them right in with the 
corn, and had enough for ourselves and all the 
neighbors." And so on till the topic was exhaust- 
ed, and then, after a short pause, one of them re- 
marked, " There 's one thing I don't like, and that 
is tomatoes ! " The second woman looked up in 
astonishment, evidently hesitating whether to let 
it pass or not, but finally, curiosity prevailing over 
politeness, she quietly asked, " Pray, what have 
we just been talking about ? " " Why, citrons. 



234 CONTROVERSIES. 

have n't we ? " " Jhave n't ; you said tomatoes." 
" Well, I meant citrons, and was thinking of 
citrons all the time," — and so it passed off with a 
laugh. 

This slight incident vividly impressed on my 
mind the danger in which we all are of being 
held responsible for opinions which we never 
entertained, and of attributing to others false- 
hoods of which they are entirely innocent. The 
case in question was one of no importance in 
itself ; but such mistakes are just as likely to be 
made in cases where passions, prejudices, and in- 
terests are concerned ; and when the little discov- 
ery that is to set things right does not happen to 
be made, one will believe, to his dying day, that 
the other told a downright lie, and the other will 
believe just as long, and just as sincerely, that 
one has circulated a slander. A great many peo- 
ple would never in this world be convinced that 
such a mistake could arise — if passions were en- 
listed on either side. Yet, undoubtedly, a great 
many of those remarkable things which nobody 
can explain come about in just as guiltless a way 
as this. Misunderstandino; is so common a cause 
of quarrel, that the very word has come to signify 
a quarrel ; but misunderstanding is not the only 
cause of misunderstandings. Misstatements make 
trouble, and are not so easily detected. A little 
girl, being asked how many chickens she had, 
answered promptly, " A hundred hens and a hun- 



CONTROVERSIES. 235 

dred chickens." Apart from a certain balance 
and finish of the numbers which do not generally 
belong to things in this world, and the undue 
proportion between parents and offspring, which 
gave an air of intrinsic improbability to the state- 
ment, it would have passed muster very well ; 
certainly nothing was further from her design 
than to tell a lie ; but the hens and chickens 
that came at call were countless to a child, and 
hundred was a number expressive to a child's 
mind of infinity, — so the two infinites were 
brought together, and a very pretty falsehood set 
going. Have you never yourself begun a sen- 
tence, and before you got through forgotten what 
you were talking about, and, with your mind a 
thousand miles off", finished it quite at random, 
and, of course, with utter disregard of truth ? 
But you are not an habitual liar. You have a 
very firm behef that you would not tell one wil- 
ful lie. There are very, very few who have 
not demonstrated human fallibility with their own 
mouths. What large-hearted charity, then, should 
we exercise towards others ! What generous mar- 
gin should we leave for mistakes and whimsical 
mental action ! How positive the proof, how over- 
whelming the presumptive evidence, before we 
can be prepared to believe evil of men, — espe- 
cially if we have known them upright ! 

There was great excitement among the children 
of Israel when the news came that the tribes be- 



236 CONTROVERSIES. 

yond Jordan had built an altar and set up for them- 
selves. It was a secession which could not be tol- 
erated. God had ordained one altar, and there all 
offerings must be brought. They remembered 
how the whole nation had suffered for the sin of 
one man, when Achan had coveted the accursed 
thing, and how much more should the defection of 
two and a half tribes draw down upon them the 
Divine displeasure? No, it must not be allowed. 
The whole cono-recration of the children of Israel 
gathered themselves together at Shiloh, to go up to 
war against them. Before proceeding to extremi- 
ties, however, they appointed a committee, chosen 
from the first families of the nation, to prepare and 
present a remonstrance to avert, if possible, the 
shedding of blood, and bring back the wanderers 
to the worship of the true God. The delegation 
departed, came to their brethren, and laid the 
case before them in terms of spirited and indig- 
nant remonstrance. " What trespass is this that 
ye have committed against the God of Israel," 
urge these Protestants, "to turn away this day 
from following the Lord, in that ye have builded 
you an altar, that ye might rebel this day 
against the Lord? " They bring up the mischief 
that followed the sin of Baal-peor. They insist on 
the essential oneness of the nation, and the impos- 
sibility of one part's sinning without all parts suf- 
fering in consequence. They refer to Achan as 
example and warning. They offer, in case their 



CONTROVERSIES. 237 

brethren are dissatisfied with their bargain, to give 
them possessions .among themselves, even at this 
late day. It is an admirable address. It lacks 
only one thing. That, however, chances to be 
the thing on which everything else hinges, name- 
ly, an inquiry into the facts. The only ground of 
their action is rumor. " The children of Israel 
heard say " so and so, and, instead of sending to 
investigate the rumors, assumed the rumors to be 
true, and sent to punish the sin. It is a wonder, 
indeed, that they did not fight first, and despatch 
their messengers afterwards. As it was, this con- 
ference finished the matter. One word from the 
supposed offenders quashed the whole proceedings. 
They repelled the charge with the most impetuous 
eagerness, and declared that they abhorred such a 
sin as much as anybody. " The Lord God of gods, 
the Lord God of gods, he knoweth, and Israel he 
shall know ; if it be in rebellion, or if in transgres- 
sion against the Lord, (save us not this day,) that 
we have built us an altar to turn from followino; 
the Lord, let the Lord himself require it." They 
go on to show that, so far from desiring to separate 
themselves from their brethren, and turn away 
from the worship of the true God, they have built 
the altar expressly to keep him and them in remem- 
brance, to " be a witness between us and you, and 
our generations after us, that your children may 
not say to our children in time to come. Ye have 
no part in the Lord " ; for this altar, the pattern 



238 CONTROVERSIES. 

of the true altar, should be a perpetual witness 
of their unity. 

The committee were extremely delighted that 
the mountain had not brought forth even a mouse. 
Probably they were too simple even to feel a little 
crestfallen, as we should almost think they would ; 
and the children of Israel seem to have received 
with unmitigated satisfaction the tidings that they 
had made much ado about nothing, and to have 
disbanded their forces, and blessed God, and gone 
home in a very satisfactory frame of mind. 

" And the children of Reuben and the children 
of Gad called the altar Ed ; for it shall be a wit- 
ness between us that the Lord is God." 

Guilt, sin, crime, are things so terrible, that we 
can hardly be too cautious how we ascribe them 
either to individuals or to corporations. These 
things are not done in a corner. Smithville and 
Joneston would each, perhaps, give scarcely more 
than a vote apiece, if it were to divide its votes 
equally among the Presidential candidates for the 
coming election, and whether the Presbyterian 
Church of Smithville overpowers, overreaches, and 
swallows up the Congregational Church of Jones- 
ton, or whether Joneston carries the day over 
Smithville, is, as a business matter, of little im- 
portance to the people of the United States ; but 
we are, or profess to be, the body of Christ, and 
members in particular. We form ourselves into 
churches expressly to cultivate and propagate 



CONTROVERSIES. 239 

the religion whose rule is love. If we cannot 
keep ourselves together without wrangling, how 
can we bind up the world with us in the bundle 
of life ? How can we strike hands against the 
enemy, if we fall out and chide and fight among 
ourselves ? If our religion has not vitality enough 
to allow us to disagree peacefully, how can it have 
enough to be aggressive ? What inducement 
shall the world have to adopt it, if it cannot keep 
the churches sweet ? 

When we combat a man's opinions, let us be 
sure that we combat his opinions, and not a 
garbled mockery of them. We cannot be too 
careful against misrepresentations. Few things 
are more exasperating than to see one's views 
caricatured, and then held up for judgment, and 
few things are more common in the discussion of 
opinions. Our Arminian friend alleges that the 
Calvinist denies free agency, — an absurdity at 
which the Calvinist would laugh, if it did not in- 
volve consequences too serious for laughter ; but 
our Calvinist friend affirms that the Unitarian be- 
lieves Christ to be a mere man, — an assertion 
which shocks the pious Unitarian almost as much 
as it does the pious Trinitarian. You think too 
many novels will destroy the mind's balance, and 
your friend replies, " Ah ! you don't believe in 
cultivating the imagination," — as if you do not 
approve of raising hay unless you lay your whole 
farm down to grass. You defend novels, believ- 



24a CONTROVERSIES. 

ing tliem capable of being vehicles of truth, and 
most potent preachers of righteousness, and are 
surprised to hear yourself quoted by the inveterate 
and wholesale devourer of " yellow-covered hter- 
ature " in defence of his course. You recom- 
mend travelling to the hollow-eyed student, and 
are gravely informed that a rolhng stone gathers 
no moss. You hint to your peripatetic friend, 
that a httle closer acquaintance with the philos- 
ophers would aid liim in his profession, and you 
are met with 

" All work and no pi a v 
ISIakes Jack a dull boy." 

The feelings awakened are such as would be 
aroused, if, while you were endeavoring to make 
parents feel the necessity of pure air, warmer 
clothing, simpler food, and healthier and more 
obedient habits for their children, some one should 
take your boy, and shave his head, and sHt his 
ears, and pamt his rosy cheeks blue, and put rings 
in liis nose, and take him around the neighborhood 
as a specimen of the result of your system of phys- 
iology. " Here is Mr. Such-a-one's boy ! This 
is the kind of child his method turns out. This is 
the system, fellow-citizens, that he wants us to 
adopt. Can't we do better than this with our 
present one ? " Do you think you should feel that 
you had been quite fairly dealt by? But thoughts, 
opinions, sentiments, are the children of the brain 
and the heart ; should not their integrity be just 



CONTROVERSIES. 241 

as scrupulously respected ? Besides, if you un- 
dertake to maletreat a child, he can scream and 
writhe and kick, and give you a deal oF trouble ; 
but a thought, a sentence, lies passive under your 
pen-point. You can mar and mutilate and mur- 
der, and send it out to the world, and silence is its 
only protest. 

All such misrepresentations must have origi- 
nated somewhere, and it is difficult to believe 
that they all arose from sheer misapprehension. 
"While many who repeat them doubtless believe 
them sincerely, it seems hardly possible but that 
some have repeated them who do not believe them. 
Unquestionably many of our Southern brethren 
really fear that the triumph of Republican princi- 
ples will inaugurate fire and sword and general 
ruin ; but is it possible that those who have stood 
nearest to the Republican party, and had every 
opportunity to inform themselves of its character, 
have fallen into such a delusion from want of sim- 
ple apprehension ? We do not severely blame 
the masses for not knowing, for such knowledge 
is with them subordinate, but we do blame the 
politicians, for it is their business to know. So in 
theology ; the shoemaker, and the tailor, and the 
milliner, do not generally — and it is not essential 
that they should — investigate for themselves the 
doctrines of the different sects. They derive their 
impressions largely from their theological teach- 
ers, and if their impressions are wrong, they ai'e 
11 p 



242 CONTROVERSIES. 

scarcely to be blamed. It is the ministers, who 
are expected to be conversant with such things, — • 
the speakers and writers, who ought to know 
whereof they affirm before they affirm it, — with 
whom the blame chiefly rests. It is no fault in a 
clergyman not to be aware that a gridiron is not a 
toasting-fork ; nor is it necessarily a fault in his 
cook to think Universalists and infidels the same 
thing. Neither is responsible for the knowledge 
that belongs to the other's department, but igno- 
rance in his own is a folly and shame to him. 
Worse still is it to palm off his ignorance upon 
others for wisdom. It is not only folly, but sin. 
Educated men have, in the first place, no right to 
be so narrow-minded. You excuse it in those 
whose horizon has been limited ; but colleges are 
built, and tutors appointed, and boys introduced 
to the wise men of old days and new, for the ex- 
press purpose of taking broad views, — of becom- 
ing liberal, catholic, comprehensive. If, however, 
notwithstanding all this, they are narrow-minded, 
let them, if possible, keep it to themselves. Do 
not let them preach their narrowness to others, 
calling it orthodoxy or piety. It is bad enough 
for a man to pluck out his eyes. It is worse for 
him to .pretend that he can see, to a man born 
blind, and so lead him with himself into the ditch. 
Language is often ambiguous. Misunderstand- 
ing is often honest. Clear understanding is some- 
times next to impossible. With the utmost care, 



CONTROVERSIES. 243 

and with conscientious intent, we do not always 
arrive at the undisguised idea. If a man wishes to 
be stupid, he has every opportunity. If he chooses 
to beheve that his opponent maintains that black 
is white, it is altogether probable that he will be 
able to believe so. But lanffuao^e is not so ambis"- 
uous but that, if we try with sincere purpose and 
fixed attention to get at what a man means, we 
shall in the main succeed, — at least enough for 
all practical purposes. Intelligence is more un- 
der the control of the will than many suspect. 
"Will to see clearly. Determine to understand 
quickly and correctly. Make a point of appre- 
hending other people's views. Be sure you are 
right before you go ahead. But if we are more 
intent on proving our own zeal, displaying our own 
keenness, building up our own cause, than we are 
at getting at the truth, we shall do harm, — and 
be verily guilty, not only concerning our brother, 
but concerning ourselves and God. 

I do not mean to decry religious, theological, or 
ecclesiastical controversies. They are important 
elucidators of the truth. In the present state of 
religious knowledge, and probably for hundreds 
of years to come, a church without controversy 
will be a church without vitality. It is by sharp 
collision that the sparks of truth are struck out. 
Let us deal heavy blows and a good many of them, 
only let us bring down our sledge-hammers on the 
anvil where hes the truth that is to be shaped, g-nd 



244 CONTROVERSIES. 

not aim them at eacli otlier's skulls, — wMcli is 
neither pleasing to God nor edif)dng to man, nor 
favorable to the elimination of truth. 

Let us also give more latitude to the brains of 
our brethren. We are very apt to attribute dif- 
ference of opinion to the wrong source. We allot 
to the heart the responsibility that belongs only to 
the head. If a man thinks it is right to do what 
we think it is wrong to do, we call it self-indul- 
gence. If he refrains from doing what we allow 
ourselves to do, we call it austerity. A good 
many of the rank and file of the Orthodox army, 
not to say a leader here and there, will hardly 
admit that Universalists and Unitarians have the 
glory of God and the welfare of man just as much 
at heart as have the Orthodox. There are still 
extant many Congregationalists who can by no 
means reconcile cards and piety. Christ has some 
very httle ones who think dancing not quite so 
atrocious as murder in the first degree ; and there 
are who believe that he that doubteth any of the 
Five Points or the Thirty-nme Articles is about 
as good as damned. Hear what the Apostle 
Paul saith : — 

'' Who art thou that judgest another man's ser- 
vant ? To his own master he standeth or falleth. 
Yea, he shall be holden up ; for God is able to 
make him stand 

" But why dost thou judge thy brother ? Or 
why dost thou set at naught thy brother ? For 



CONTROVERSIES. 245 

we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of 

Christ So, then, every one of us shall give 

account of himself to God. Let us not, there- 
fore, judge one another any more." 

The Apostle cannot mean that we are to form 
no opinion of our neighbor, for it is not in the na- 
ture of things that a man should walk in and out 
before a community ten, twenty, thirty years, 
without leaving an impression. 

What, then, does he mean ? 

If we turn to the fourteenth chapter of Romans 
we shall find that he is talking about difference of 
opinion in minor matters. One believes that the 
ritual, Mosaic law is still in force, and he is accord- 
ingly observant of days and meats. Another be- 
lieves it to be abrogated, and considers all days 
ahke, and all meats clean ; but the Apostle, with 
characteristic liberality, defends both sides. " If 
you think it is wrong to eat meat, eat it not, 
only do not call him who does eat, a pagan. If 
you think it is right to eat it, eat, but do not call 
him who abstains a stickler. Look somewhat be- 
hind deeds to motives, and know that in certain 
regards the truest piety is consistent with opposite 
beliefs and actions," 

We need Paul's large-hearted wisdom quite as 
much as did those old Romans. 

Shibboleth is a very good test-word, if you only 
want to find out whether a man is an Ephraimite ; 
but it does not help to distinguish between Jew 
and Gentile. 



246 CONTROVERSIES. 

" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou 
shalt be saved," is the simple and succinct theory 
of the Christian religion. " Pure religion and 
undefiled before God and the Father is this, to 
visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction, 
and to keep himself unspotted from the world," 
are the two lines of its practice, — charity and pu- 
rity. Eighteen hundred years ago a voice was 
heard crying in the wilderness of Judsea, " Bring 
forth fruits worthy of repentance " ; and when the 
people, ignorant, asked, ''What shall we do?" 
the voice replied, " He that hath two coats, let 
him impart to him that hath none ; and he that 
hath meat, let him do likewise." And the publi- 
cans said, " What shall we do ? " And the voice 
replied, " Exact no more than that which is ap- 
pointed you." And the soldiers asked, " What 
shall we do ? " And the reply was, " Do vio- 
lence to no man, neither accuse any falsely ; and 
be content with your wages." So everywhere 
throughout the New Testament, shades of doc- 
trine, forms of worship, are of less account than 
the deeds of every-day life. In the twelfth chap- 
ter of Romans we have a beautiful presentation of 
the sacrifice which is pleasing in the sight of God. 
There is a sketch, limned by a Divine hand, of a 
true Christian community. Yet we greatly fear 
that it is a study, and not a portrait. 

Theology, the science of God, is a sublime and 
infinite thing. Earth serves for a beginning, but 



CONTROVERSIES. 247 

eternity can give no end. Yet with incredible 
self-confidence we lay down our propositions, 
affirm our belief therein, and drag up our breth- 
ren to the mark. Now God has revealed to us 
certain great facts and principles — quite enough 
for our guidance in this world, quite enough for 
our entrance into a happier — in letters of living 
light, which all may read ; but after all, great is 
the mystery of godliness. The Bible is the per- 
fect work of an Infinite Being ; but we bring to 
it the imperfect strength of finite minds. We 
may study facts and draw inferences, but the- 
ological science is not susceptible of mathematical 
demonstration. He who brings to the investiga- 
tion humility, thirst for knowledge, love to God 
and man, will eventually find the hidden truth, 
the pearl of great price ; and he who brings 
haughtiness, a belief full-formed, a prejudiced 
mind, and seeks only confirmation, will also find 
what he seeks, — confirmation. Truth will "not 
unsought be won," nor will she be wooed by proxy. 
It would have been just as easy for God to reveal 
everything, as to reveal a part, — to reveal it be- 
yond the possibility of misconception, as to reveal 
it as it is. As it is, the best men in all ages have 
differed regarding some of its teachings ; and this 
fact indicates that the Bible is a part of the 
machinery of God's moral government. By the 
way in which we receive and study it shall our 
disposition towards him, in part, be judged. Let 



248 CONTROVERSIES. 

us, therefore, be charitable towards those who 
differ from us. Original structure, education, 
surroundings, give to every mind its own indi- 
viduality. Through its own peculiar atmosphere 
God shines upon every heart. To one, clouds 
and darkness are round about Him; to another, 
He dwells " never but in unapproached light," 

All young people who do their own thinking, or 
any considerable part of it, are liable to be more or 
less troubled with doubts. They pass through an 
attack of heresies almost as regularly as through 
the measles ; in fact, the one bears about the same 
relation to the soul that the other does to the body ; 
neither being dangerous, if well treated, both ca- 
pable of causing the greatest injury if carelessly or 
ignorantly managed. 

There are two kinds of doubters among the 
young ; one the bright, active, " smart fellow," 
who wishes it to be distinctly understood that he 
is not going to believe that two and two make 
four simply because his father did. He insists on 
a demonstration of it to his own satisfaction, and, 
if you cannot demonstrate it to him, and there is 
evidence that two and two make five, he will be- 
lieve that two and two make five, notwithstanding 
the arithmetics. For that matter, the very fact 
that all arithmetics have hitherto made and main- 
tained this assertion, is rather a reason to him why 
he should not believe it, — at least, it gives him a 
lively desire not to believe it. He wishes the world 



CONTROVERSIES. 249 

and posterity to be aware that his is an original 
mind, looking at things as they are, and not at 
things as " old fogies " see them. His doubts are 
consequently brought forward promiscuously, pub- 
licly, on the slightest provocation. It gratifies 
him to have an opportunity — or to make one — 
to show" the investigating, independent, fearless 
turn of his mind. Not that he is not a very fine 
young person. He may be really promising and 
superior. It is a more hopeful sign in a young man 
to be too stirring, than too stagnant. It is natural 
for old men to err on the side of conservatism, for 
young, on the side of radicalism ; and it is unnat- 
ural for them to change places. When college, or 
contact with men and affairs, has taken the conceit 
out of our young friend, and the furnace of afflic- 
tion has purified him, and time has enlarged his 
vision and matured his judgment, he will be an 
excellent citizen, one of the pillars of the Church, 
— if he is but decently well manipulated. 

The second doubter is quieter, graver, more reti- 
cent. You may live a year with him, and not 
discover that he does not go along your highway, 
but strikes out into little by-paths of his own. His 
differences from your opinion are modestly and 
hesitatingly spoken, generally unpremeditated, or 
divulged by accident, or perhaps timidly suggested 
to you in half-way hints, with a vague hope that 
you may come to the rescue. They almost sadden 
him. It is a sacrifice to him to be oblicred to so 
11* 



250 CONTROVERSIES. 

contrary to tlie traditions of the elders. He wishes 
that he could believe implicitly everything which 
he has been taught. His doubts are real diffi- 
culties. 

In both these cases, it is of the utmost impor- 
tance, though for different reasons, that the per- 
son or persons to whom such doubts are expressed, 
should not seem nor be shocked, nor startled, nor 
surprised. In the first place, it is just what the 
first young person wants. Nothing would please 
him better than to thow a shell into the orthodox 
camp, and see it burst and scatter the orthodox 
in all directions. Nothing; will take the wind out 
of his sails more effectually, than to have you 
go up to his tremendous shell and turn it over, 
and roll it about playfully, and demonstrate that, 
after all, it is only a harmless football, — you 
have seen scores of them in your day, — in fact, 
patronized them yourself, when you were young. 
Finding that he does not make a sensation will 
presentlj^ cure him of trying to make sensations, 
and the desire to make them will die out alto- 
gether before long. 

It is absolutely essential, however, that you re- 
ceive the second young person with an unruffled 
deportment. You are not to be shocked, first, 
because if you are, you will repulse him, and 
secondly, because there really is nothing shock- 
ing about it. The Cliristian religion is flill of 
mysteries. The Bible is a quarry of truth, in 



CONTROVERSIES. 251 

which men have been digging for centuries, and 
have brought up many a massive block, most of 
which are, as yet, but blocks, irregular and un- 
couth. Comparatively few have been carved into 
shapely statues, that can delight the eye and sat- 
isfy the soul. One looks farther into the future 
than another. You see the Apollo hidden in the 
marble, but your young friend sees only a jagged 
fragment ; and there is nothing that need surprise 
you in his limited vision. To be shocked, and to 
let him see that you think him on the high road 
to Infidelity and Atheism because he cannot look 
upon this, that, and the other as you do, — because 
he cannot reconcile seeming discrepancies, nor 
prevent their troubling him, — is the sure way to 
drive him headlong into the very slough of Infi- 
delity. He knows that he is sincerely seeking the 
truth. He knows that he is not only willing, but 
anxious, to believe in the Bible ; and to have you 
start back in horror at his explorations, and hint 
of rationalism and free-thinking and shipwreck, 
not only disgusts him, but has a strong tendency 
to throw discredit on a Bible which cannot stand 
the test of sound reasoning and careful inquiry ; 
dnd so his mole-hills are magnified into mountains 
of difiiculty. To be sure, it is you that are weak 
in the faith, not the Bible ; but he, as well as 
many who are older and wiser than he, is very apt 
to confound a cause with its supporters, and to 
make the weakness of the latter an indication of 



252 CONTROVERSIES. 

the weakness of the former. He will, perhaps, 
never again mention the subject to you, but, kept 
back in the recesses of his own mind, it will loom 
up a hideous monster, while, if you had brought 
it out into the light, it would have roared him as 
gently as a sucking dove. 

The true way is to receive him kindly, and draw 
out his thoughts freely and fully. If he has diffi- 
culties which you can explain thoroughly, explain 
them, but do not attempt to do so unless, before 
you begin, you are quite sure that you can finish. 
An explanation that does not explain, is a thousand 
times worse than none ; while few things will give 
him more confidence in himself and you and the 
Bible than for you frankly to say, " That point is 
indeed hard to be understood. I do not fully com- 
prehend it myself, but it does not trouble me. I 
have put it aside as one of those things that we 
know not now, but shall know hereafter." Lay 
it down at the outset that nobody is responsible for 
the Bible. Nobody is under bonds to make its 
difPerent parts adjust themselves. It is God's book, 
and its harmony is his afiair, not ours. Our busi- 
ness is to study and practise it. If any one chooses 
to harmonize Geology and Genesis, or the Law 
and the Gospel, very well. It will doubtless do 
much good in the way of removing stumbhng- 
blocks, and, as a missionary work, is well worth 
while. But to do it for the Bible's sake, is ab- 
surd, — and there is a great deal of that sort of 



CONTROVERSIES. 253 

thing done. One would tliink that the Bible was 
gotten up by a conspiracy of Christians, who felt 
bound to sustain it, and that if all its crooked pla- 
ces were not made straight, it would go by the 
board. Do not you fall into this mistake witli 
your ingenuous and doubting friend. Let him 
see that you, for one, believe in the Bible thor- 
oughly, — believe in its Divine origin and self-sus- 
taining power, and that it will go on a year or two 
longer, even if you cannot put everything right. 
Your confidence will be contagious. He will in- 
stinctively feel that a cause which gives its friends 
so little anxiety, must have an inward strength. 
Teach him also how to take his reckonings, by 
showing him that our opinions generally are but 
the balance of probabilities, and that we believe 
the Bible, notwithstanding its obscurities and ap- 
parent discrepancies, just as we believe a great 
many other things, because it is far easier to 
believe than to disbelieve ; but do not for a mo- 
ment suppose that you are advancing the cause 
of truth by denying that it is beset with difficul- 
ties, or by ridiculing or repelling those who cannot 
fail to discern them. 

I do not admit that it is of no consequence what 
a man's belief is, if he is only sincei'e in it. So far 
as a man's belief affects his character and conduct, 
it is of the utmost importance that he believe 
right, as I shall presently attempt to show ; and a 
belief that does not affect the character and con- 



254 CONTROVERSIES. 

duct needs to be looked into at once. There is a 
definite boundarj-line between truth and false- 
hood, and he who stops short of it, or goes beyond 
it, is in danger. Particularlj in matters that di- 
rectly pertain to our eternal well-being should we 
see to it that we do not build on the sand ; but 
this does not justify us in breaking our neighbor's 
windows, or calling our neighbor hard names every 
time we see him at the front door, even if he has 
chosen a sand rather than a rock foundation ; and 
especially is this true if, as is often the case, we 
have never seen his underpinning, but only know 
it by hearsay, or inferentially. 

Moreover, it is unquestionably true that the 
reason why many of us have no doubts, is because 
we have no thoughts. We hold the truth in our 
hands. We call it ours. We toss it playfully 
hither and thither. It is to us an heirloom trans- 
mitted with the family name ; but we have never 
penetrated the crust of words, to the idea that lives 
and glows and throbs beneath ; while our doubt- 
ing, wavering brother, on whom we look coldly 
and distrustfully, more earnest and searching than 
we, has rent off the casings, and the iron has en- 
tered into his soul, fierce, burning, scarifying. 
Shall we scorn ? Shall we not rather rcA^erence ? 

For him who speaks flippantly of commonly held 
beliefs, — who carelessly flings out doubts, and 
affects indiflerence or contempt of them, — for the 
sake of an appearance of greater independence and 



CONTROVERSIES. 255 

free -thinking, but who is equally a stranger to 
conscientious belief and conscientious doubt, one 
has small sympathy, — yet pity even for him. 
But for the serious mind, struggling in mists and 
darkness, though the darkness be his own sins 
rising up like a cloud between his soul and God, 
we cannot have too great a liberality, too warm 
a tenderness. We cannot roll the cloud away, 
but we can give him a helping hand ; or, if he 
refuse the proffered hand, we can still pray to 
Him to whom the darkness and the light are both 
alike. 

Particularly let us be careful how we bandy epi- 
thets. Let us beware that we give no opprobrious 
name to one who, loving God, and striving con- 
tinually to serve him, is overwhelmed by a host of 
Satan's legions, — cast down, but not destroyed. 
Far more justly should we reproach him who, pro- 
fessing to sit in the full glory of the holy of ho- 
lies, has only reproach and contumely for those 
who are still groping in the valley of the shadow 
of death. 

Standing on the hill-top, bathed in the full splen- 
dor of God the Creator, of Christ the Sufferer 
and the Saviour, of the Holy Spirit, the Mediator 
and Intercessor, our souls are wafted up into the 
region of faith and rapture, and we shout, exult- 
ant, " Lord, I believe ! " but down in the valley, 
among the dry, dead bones, delving in the deep 
recesses of our own hearts, awed by the evil that 



256 CONTROVERSIES. 

broods, gloomy and shadowr, over the world, our 
highest effort is to cry, with tear-streaming eyes 
and quivering lips, " Help thou mine unbelief ! " 

It is unspeakably pleasant to know that, amid 
all the clash and clangor, one clear song of victory 
pours continually up to God. "With a thousand 
hesitations and blunders, with all the bickering of 
evil passions, there is a steady progress towards 
the heights of Christian concord. 

" It does move though," was the indignant pro- 
test of Galileo's unconquered and unconquerable 
conviction, when Galileo's timorous lips had weak- 
ly renounced the new-born truth. Ignorance 
would have remanded the world back to its 
pristine immobility, and swept the sun around 
it as aforetime ; but the elastic and invincible 
truth sprang up from beneath the weight of 
priestcraft and tyranny, and asserted itself in 
unshorn strength. 

The world does move. All along the road, in 
the World and in the Church, are way-marks of 
its progress. Old hypotheses that were the husks 
of truths or refuges of errors, old hatred that a 
closer acquaintance has cast off, old inventions that 
were but the first essavs of o-enius, scattered broad- 
cast, mark its grand, triumphal march. Retro- 
gTessions there are, and weary wanderings in 
wildernesses, and many a sluggish halt, but the 
Lord has spoken to the children of men, and they 
go forward. 



CONTROVERSIES. 257 

Some thirty or forty years before a star guided 
the wise men to the cradle of the baby-Christ, there 
was hving in Rome a gay, generous young gen- 
tleman, whose name is still held in pleasant re- 
membrance. Possessed of an ample fortune, a 
part of the year was spent in town, and a part in 
the retirement of his Sabine farm ; but whether 
amid the gayeties of the metropolis, or by the 
murmur of the Bandusian spring, or at the fre- 
quented baths of Baia3 on the shore of the many- 
sounding sea, his wit, his education, his accom- 
plishments, and his elegance drew around him 
the most fashionable, intellectual, and cultivated 
society of Italy ; and to this day he keeps his place 
in the front rank of lyric poets. 

Yet this scholar and gentleman, so polished, so 
refined, on the occasion of the departure to Greece- 
of a gentleman whom he perhaps justly disliked, 
published a poem in which he begged the winds 
to remember to lash the sides of his foe's ship with 
frightful waves, to snap his ropes and break his 
oars, and hide with cloud every friendly star. He 
gloats over the fruitless toil of that foe's sailors, the 
deadly pallor of his face, and his unmanly wail- 
ings and prayers for succor, and closes by vowing 
a thank-offering to the gods, if the man shall per- 
ish shipwrecked on a hostile shore ! And nobody 
seems to have taken exception to it. Suppose 
LongfelloAv, or Lowell, or Whittier, should write 
such a poem to a political or personal enemy, 



258 CONTROVERSIES. 

wliat measure would they receive from " our best 
Bociety"? 

Sixteen hundred years later, Milton, a man 
whose fame no words can illustrate, in his po- 
litical controversies indulged in a fierceness and 
coarseness of invective, which are banished now 
to the very purlieus of civilization. In his answer 
to Salmasius, epithets of opprobrium and scorn are 
heaped up page after page. " So little," he says, 
" do we fear, you slug you, any war or danger 
through your silly rhetoric." "You, in the mean 
time, you silly loggerhead, deserve to have your 
bones well thrashed with a fool's stafp." " Meddle 
with your own matters, you ninagate, and be 
ashamed of your actions, since" the Church is 
ashamed of you." "Speak out, you wretch, and 
never mince the matter." "And when they have 
been an CEdipus to you, by my consent you shall 
be a Sphinx to them in good earnest, and throw 
yourself headlong from some precipice or other, 
and break your neck." " I am weary of mention- 
ing your lies, and ashamed of them." " You im- 
pudent liar, what mortal ever heard this whimsy 
before you invented it ? " " You rascal, was it 
not for this that you, a renegade grammarian, were 
so forward to intermeddle ? " "I think that the 
best course you can take will be, for this long book 
that you have writ, to take a halter and make 
one long letter of yourself." And this silly log- 
gerhead, and runagate, and rascal, and liar, was 



CONTROVERSIES. 259 

no malefactor, but Salmasius of Leyden, generally 
accounted the first scholar of his age. We have 
sharp political and theological controversies now, 
but nothing equal to this. The world does move. 
What was Piccadilly then, is Billingsgate now. 
The leaven has worked, refining our language, 
softening our manners, and, may we not say ? 
elevating our hearts. 




IX. 



AMUSEMENTS. 




YOUNG lady once remarked, that 
she should like to be a Christian, but 
she did not think she could give up 
balls. 

This is an indication of the reason why many do 
not set about becoming Christians. They draw a 
line. On one side is religion ; on the other side 
happiness. If they take religion, they take safety 
for the next world, but a cheerless kind of happi- 
ness for the remainder of this. If they take hap- 
piness, they take a gay, pleasant, agreeable life 
for this world, but run a risk for the next. A 
bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and 
they, naturally enough, decide to make sure of 
this life at any rate, and sufficient unto the next 
life are the evils thereof. They do not know much 
about that future world, but they do know the 
present. They will keep what they get, and get 
what they can ; and in a measure they are right. 



AMUSEMENTS. 261 

Certain present happiness is better than uncertain 
future happiness. It stands to reason that the 
present, actual world, the world we were born into, 
the world we are now living in, is the world with 
which we are chiefly concerned. The future 
world will have its own conditions, its own duties ; 
but they will not devolve upon us till we get 
through with this. It is our business to do the 
duties of this world, and it is our right to enjoy 
its pleasures. I, for one, should very much mis- 
trust any man who should put heaven's work in 
place of earth's work ; or who should promise 
happiness in the next world only at the sacrifice 
of happiness in this. 

But it is not so. These people make a mistake. 
The beauty of true. Evangelical, Gospel rehgion 
— of Christ-religion — is that it is a religion for 
this world, — this busy, gay, social, active, living, 
present world. Not that it is confined to this. 
By no means. It lights up the dim aisles of the 
past and of the future, revealing to us all we know 
of the glory that has been, and promising us a 
glory yet to be revealed, such as eye hath not seen, 
nor ear heard, nor heart of man conceived. Glo- 
rious things it speaks to us for our comfort; — of a 
golden city, clear as crystal, unto which the kings 
of the earth shall bring their glory and their hon- 
or ; of many mansions prepared for us therein by 
the Lord of light ; of a life into which shall no 
more enter anything that defileth, nor any sorrow, 



262 AMUSEMENTS. 

or crying, or pain, or death. All this it promises 
us for an incitement, and the loss of all this for a. 
warning ; yet its present, its great, I had almost 
said its chief value, is not in the future, but in 
what it is doing for us every day. It is of inesti- 
mable price in this life, as well as in that which is 
to come. It is good for us in this world, even if 
there were no other. The virtues which it enjoins 
fit us not only for heaven, but for earth. They 
are not only pure, but profitable. They are due 
not only to Christianity, but to humanity. What- 
ever a man ought to do because he is a Chris- 
tian, he ought to do because he is a man. What- 
ever wrongs his Christianity wrongs his manhood. 
Everything that is unchristian is impolitic. Sin is 
not only sinfiil, but it does not pay. Any act that 
transgresses God's moral law is a poor business 
calculation. Whatever increases a man's value 
in the Church, increases his value in the World. 
The better the Christian, the better the citizen. 
In proportion as bankers and brokers and mer- 
chants become true Christians, will business be put 
on a sure footing. Christian principles are the 
best possible basis for a business character. 

So with the happiness of religion. It will take 
us to heaven, but we shall not have to wait till we 
get to heaven before we get any pleasure out of it. 
It pays as it goes. It is a comfort and a blessing 
all the way along. It is the one pleasure that 
never fails, that brings no after-pains. If. it dis- 



AMUSEMENTS. 263 

places old joys, it brings in new and better ones to 
fill their places. It is the very fountain of happi- 
ness, — not only spreading out into a placid lake 
at our journey's end, — a sea of glass mingled 
with fire, whereon they that have gotten the vic- 
tory shall stand with the harps of God, — but all 
the way through the wilderness its waters break 
out, and its streams in the desert, so that even the 
parched ground becomes a pool, and the thirsty 
land springs of water. It is eminently and pre- 
eminently the religion of now. 

But all this cannot, of course, be known by those 
who have not tasted that the Lord is gracious. 
They cannot forget those things that are behind, 
because they do not see in their true light the 
things which are before, and there is no beauty for 
them to desire. In all such cases two courses may 
be pursued. We may say, " You then love amuse- 
ment better than life. You will sacrifice heaven 
to an evening's enjoyment. You will barter an 
eternity of bliss for a lifetime of uncertain and cer- 
tainly fleeting pleasures. You will take gayety in 
exchange for your soul. Here is the choice : here, 
worldly pleasures ; there, heavenly. Choose this 
day whether you will serve the god of this world, 
or the God of all worlds." 

This may be the wise course, but I do not think 
it is. The opportunity of choice is of no value 
unless we are acquainted with the character of 
the things to be chosen. Solomon's wisdom and 



264 AMUSEMENTS. 

Enoch's goodness would be of small service when 
your little boy comes to you with his hands behind 
him, and says, " Which will you have, the right, 
or the left ? " In asking a person to choose be- 
tween earthly and heavenly pleasures, you ask him 
to choose between what he knows and what he 
does not know. You ask him to give up some- 
thing which he knows he likes, for something which 
he not only does not know that he likes, but rather 
thinks he does not Hke. Is it altogether to be 
expected that he will do it ? It is of no use to 
say that worldly pleasures, so called, are not real 
pleasures ; because it is not true. They are real. 
There is pleasure in dancing, gambling, and horse- 
racing, — in fine clothes, theatres, and wine sup- 
pers. Every one who has tried it knows there is 
pleasure in it, and when you say there is not, you 
contradict the facts of his consciousness. Think a 
moment, — if there were no pleasure in it, why do 
so many do it ? Nobody ever cut off his hand for 
the pleasure of the thing. Nobody ever drank a 
friend's health in assafoetida. True such life does 
not bring the highest kind of happiness, but neither 
do ripe pears, nor tight roofs, nor well-tilled farms, 
nor well-ordered houses ; yet we do not despise 
them on that account, much less condemn them. 
A great deal that goes to make life comfortable 
springs from inferior sources. We cannot afford 
to slight the brook that ripples through our garden, 
because it was not born amid the snow-crested 



AMUSEMENTS. 265 

summits of the Rocky Mountains. True such pleas- 
ures may be dearly paid for in wasted time, ruined 
health, and shattered souls ; but footing up bills is 
a quite different matter from running up bills. It 
does not come till afterwards, and may be very 
disagreeable without preventing the other from 
being just the opposite. Moreover, there are 
many worldly pleasures which are not offset by 
palpable, immediate disadvantages, and many more 
that have no disadvantages to affect them, — being 
not only harmless, but in their place useful. The 
man who has a pleasant home, a lucrative busi- 
ness, and the respect of his fellows, and who thinks 
he is enjoying himself, will hardly credit you when 
you inform him that he is not. Knowing nothing 
of that higher happiness which you hold up to 
him, and not having yet weighed his own in the 
balance to find it wanting, it is not entirely illogi- 
cal that he should be contented as he is. 

The trouble is, that you have precipitated the 
issue. Issues are always to be avoided, notwith- 
standing the fact that many, brought face to face 
with such issues, do choose the right to their ever- 
lasting joy ; but laws are instituted for the pro- 
tection of the weak, not of the strong. The feast 
which the Lord blessed was given to the poor, tlie 
maimed, the lame, and the blind. The test, the 
trial which strengthens one man, will kill another. 
Through thy knowledge shall thy weak brother 
perish for whom Christ died ? When ye sin so 

12 



266 AMUSEMENTS. 

against thy brethren, and wound their weak con- 
science, ye sin against Christ. A wise parent will 
not plunge his child into a hand-to-hand conflict 
with disobedience, if he can help it. If the child 
is peevish and unhappy, and tending to insubordi- 
nation, he will not immediately launch a com- 
mand, though the command itself may be reason- 
able, and eminently fit to be obeyed. He will 
endeavor to soothe,' to lead the troubled mind away 
from its troubles ; and when placidity is restored, 
and the little face is clothed with sunshine, the 
command will be cheerfully obeyed. Civilians, 
whose knowledo-e of battles is derived from Sallust 
and Gibbon, will be rampant for war, when expe- 
rienced generals, who have seen fighting, who have 
been in the trenches, and heard the balls whistling 
around them, will be strenuous advocates of pacific 
measures. But though an issue is to be shunned, 
it is not to be shirked. By just as much as it is 
to be avoided, by just so much is it to be bravely 
met when it is unavoidable. 

The old proverb says, " The Devil is old, and 
therefore knows many things," and if there is 
any one thing which he knows better than any 
other, it is human nature. Concerning God and 
the indwelling life and might of righteousness, he 
is short-sighted ; but how to mix truth and false- 
hood in such proportions that man shall accept 
it, how to combine truth enough to lull suspicion 
with falsehood enough to destroy the soul, he 



AMUSEMENTS. 267 

knows to a charm. He Is as well acquainted with 
the laws of mind as we, and understands their 
bearings, and how to use them for his own pur- 
poses, a great deal better than we. He knows that, 
if men could clearly see what life with religion in 
it Is, they would choose It rather than life without 
religion ; but this they cannot do, because religion 
Is of such a nature that one must possess It him- 
self In order to get at any adequate conception of 
its worth. He knows further, that if he can get 
men to think they see the two, and to make choice 
upon such vision, it will be a strong point gained. 
To this end he holds up a nondescript article, — 
something that has no existence In heaven, but Is 
of the earth, earthy, and of the Devil, devilish ; 
something that Is cold and negative and repulsive. 
That he calls religion, and asks them to choose 
that instead of their warm, sensuous, and real, If 
short-lived pleasures ; knowing all the while — the 
cunning schemer — that they will do nothing of 
the sort. " Choose religion," he says, " religion 
that will destroy all your pleasures, and give you 
up body and soul to church-going, and psalm-sing- 
ing, and prayer-meetings, and tract-societies, and 
general solemnity." For this Is undoubtedly what 
religion means to a vast multitude of people, and 
this Invitation, recollect, he addresses to men who 
have not yet got hold of the secret life which dwells 
in church and psalm, wherever they are vital, and 
to whom, therefore, psalms and hymns are but 



268 AMUSEMENTS. 

sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. But little 
cares he whether they understand the terms of the 
bargain or not. Little cares he whether they know 
w^hat they reject or not, so long as he knows what 
they accept. It is his aim to get them to turn 
away from God and cling to himself, and it is not 
in his nature to hold back, from conscientious scru- 
ples, when a little deception would serve his pur- 
pose. If he can make his proposal through the 
lips of some worthy and devout man, so that his 
victims shall not for a moment suspect that there 
is any cheating going on, so much the better. 

There is another, and I think a more excellent 
way. Remembering that the person whom you 
are addressing is, as yet, totally unacquainted wdth 
the joys of religion, and knows it chiefly, if not 
wholly, by its duties and immunities, and even that 
but partially, — remembering also that a true idea 
is the very best lever with which to pry up a false 
idea, — would it not be better to dwell less upon the 
pleasures that are to be given up, and more upon 
those that are to be acquired, — to insist not so 
much that the longing soul shall abandon the leeks 
and onions of Egypt, as to set before him the milk 
and honey of the promised land ? Why not say to 
the gay girl who finds the ball-room an obstacle in 
the way to Christ, " Leave that question alone. Do 
not trouble yourself about it. Let it settle itself. 
The point now is to give your heart to God. You 
acknowledge that you owe allegiance to him. All 



AMUSEMENTS. 269 

that any Christian wants, or has any right to want 
of you, is that you should pay what you owe. In 
order to do this, look not upon the world which 
you fear to leave, but the God to whom you 
wish to go, — a God ready to pardon, forgiving 
iniquity, transgression, and sin, though he will by 
no means clear the guilty, — a God who is clothed 
with majesty, yet whose name is love, — a King 
omnipotent, yet a Father all-compassionate, — on 
whose side ranging yourself, you will be on the side 
of goodness, truth, right, against wickedness, false- 
hood, and oppression, — whose presence is fulness 
of joy, at whose right hand are pleasures forever- 
more, — whom having not seen we fove, in whom 
only believing we rejoice with joy unspeakable 
and full of glory, and whom when we see we 
shall be like, changed into the same image from 
glory to glory." 

From glory to glory, — such are the Christian's 
stepping-stones. Show them to those whose feet 
are almost gone. Show them that the religion of 
the Bible is not a relimon of o-loom and coldness 
and forlorn hopes and last resources, — a religion 
to be chosen as the least of two evils, — a religion 
for poor people and consumptive people and mel- 
ancholy people, for sea-voyages and steam-car- 
riages and thunder-storms ; but a religion full, rich, 
vigorous, rounding itself to the most exuberant 
nature, adapted to the most active life, capable of 
filliniT the warmest lieart, — a re]io;ion whose key- 



270 AMUSEMENTS. 

note is love, whose banner over us is love, whose 
precept is to rejoice evermore. Demonstrate to 
them that there is not only righteousness, but peace 
and joy, in the Holy Ghost. Set Christ before 
them, the chief among ten thousand, the one alto- 
gether lovely. Bid them lay hold of his goodness, 
clothe themselves in his strength, his beautiful 
garments of purity and holiness and benevolence 
and beneficence, and be called by his new name. 
Shall we, then, leave out of sight the sacrifices 
which God requires ? Shall we hide the cross 
beneath the crown till we have got people se- 
curely into the Church, and then turn upon them 
and bid them relinquish their former pleasures 
upon pain of an evil name and public disfavor, and 
so lay ourselves open to a prosecution for obtain- 
ing converts under false pretences ? Or shall they 
indeed continue their dissipations and unworthy 
amusements as things with which God is well 
pleased ? Shall they serve God and mammon ? 
Nay, verily. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, 
and him only shalt thou serve. But having once 
put a soul en rapport with its Maker, — having, as 
far as in us lay, restored the broken links of the 
chain that bound it to the Father, — we leave it to 
make the reconcihation complete, the consecration 
entire. Specific duty is a matter between every 
soul and its God. If a man has really become a 
child of God, God's will will henceforth be the rul- 
ing principle of his life. He will desire nothing so 



AMUSEMENTS. 271 

mucli as to find out what God wishes him to do, 
and then to do it. Loving God whom he hath not 
seen, he will love his brother whom he hath seen. 
He will no longer seek only his own, but his neigh- 
bor's good. Self will be deposed from the first 
place in his heart, and God will reign supreme. 
The dethroned monarch may set on foot many a 
rebellion, and the kingdom may, for a long time, 
have but little quiet, but the end will surely be 
peace, and he shall come whose right it is to reign. 
Balls and operas and gaming-houses, all the pleas- 
ures which the Christian world agrees in con- 
demning, and all the pleasures which some con- 
demn, and some connive at, and some justify, will 
appear before him in new lights as the sun of right- 
eousness arises. He may not at first see every- 
thing in its real aspect. The glamour falls but 
slowly from his eyes, and men appear to him but 
as trees walking. He will need thought and read- 
ing and prayer, and the constant exercise of his 
reason. Christian counsel may cast away some of 
the stumbling-blocks from his path, but his own 
hand chiefly must lay the axe at the root of the 
trees ; and never fear but that he will eventually 
make straight in the desert of his soul a highway 
for the Son of God. 

As for worldly pleasures, they will adjust them- 
selves. Those which come between him and God 
it will be no sacrifice to relinquish, for he will have 
lost all relish for them. Those that do not thus 



272 AMUSEMENTS. 

interfere, lie need not relinquish at all. If he finds 
that certain exercises leave him listless, indisposed 
to action, unable to cope with the adversary, he 
will instinctively shun them. Others that recre- 
ate him from, and fit him for, the severer duties 
of life, he will continue, — doing God ser^ace by 
strencrthenincT his soul for work. He will fall off 
naturally from wrong amusements ; he will not be 
torn reluctantly away from them. Whatever 
force is to be exerted will be exerted by his own 
free will, not by any external power. From 
what he sees to be deleterious, it will be a joy 
to shake himself free. He is not to do anything 
because it would be consistent, or refirain from 
doing anvthino; because it would be inconsistent. 
The greatest villain in the world may lead a per- 
fectly consistent life. It is absurd to do some- 
thing to-day, because we did or said something 
last year. We are older to-day than we were 
last year, and our views should be broader. Last 
year we may have been wrong. Let us to-day 
be right. Let the dead bury their dead ; let us 
be concerned only to follow Jesus. We are to 
stop away from the gaming-table, not because we 
are church-members, but because we are men. 
If it is not harmful for men to gamble, it is not 
harmful for church-members. If it does not harm 
a girl to go to balls before she joins the church, 
it does not harm her afterwards. If dancing is 
good for her Avomanhood, it is good for her Chris- 



AMUSEMENTS. 273 

tianity. The Bible forbids to the Christian no 
pleasure which is beneficial to the human being. 
Christianity is simply the very higliest state of 
manhood. Indulgences that are injurious are in- 
jurious because they keep a man below his proper 
level, not because he has signed a certain paper or 
made a certain agreement. Drunkenness is wronsc 
because it debases the image of God, not because 
it violates a pledge. Lust and avarice would en- 
foul the soul if Christ had never died. 

In a most thoughtful, elegant, and Christian 
book, I lately read, '' The sober Christian may 
possibly feel a shock in finding Novalis describe 
his faith as a foe to art, to science, even to en- 
joyment ; yet does not his own daily experience 
prove that the holding of the one thing needful 
involves the letting go of many things lovely and 
desirable, and that in thought as well as in action 
he must go on ' ever narrowing his way, avoiding 
much'r' 

To all which I say emphatically, no ! The hold- 
ins; of the one thino; needful does not involve the 
letting go of anything really lovely and desirable. 
It not only makes it more lovely and more de- 
sirable, but more worthy of love and desire, and 
therefore more worthy to be retained. Every 
pleasure, every pursuit, which was simply inno- 
cent, puts on a new nature when the soul is fired 
with religious fervor, and guided by religious prin- 
ciple, and becomes religious. Christianity acts 

1 2* K 



274 AMUSEMENTS. 

•upon tlie occupations and recreations of life like a 
magnet upon iron-filings. Its strong current pours 
over the shapeless, incoherent dust, and sweeps the 
particles to their polar spheres. There is no longer 
listlessness and chaos. Every atom knows its 
place, and bends in unhesitating obedience to this 
new motive power ; so order is evoked from dis- 
order. But pleasures, in becoming duties, do not 
cease to be pleasures. Eating and drinking to the 
glory of God is not only more beneficial, but more 
delightful, than eating and drinking to gluttony 
and drunkenness. Ambition, saturated with be- 
nevolence, and consecrated to God, not only brings 
forth fruit just as nutritive and just as plenteous, 
but a richer and more delicious fruit. Wisdom's 
ways are ways not only of profit, but of pleasant- 
ness. Religion organizes and symmetrizes life, but 
cramps nothing, annihilates nothing. 

So it is impossible to believe with the same au- 
thor, that " the rule of Christ is not only exclusive, 
but restrictive, and .... we need not look far into 
either literature or art to see to how many of their 
happiest energies this rule opposes itself." I be- 
lieve that the rule of Christ, so far from opposing a 
single happy energy of literature or art, strength- 
ens, mobilizes, purifies, and vivifies them all. 
There is not a faculty, nor a power of the human 
soul, which is not utilized by being brought under 
the control of religion. They find their true 
s|)here and scope only when Christ takes the lead, 



AMUSEMENTS. 275 

and trains all tlie faculties to heavenly purposes. 
The servants of sin never develop their inborn 
power till they become the servants of righteous- 
ness. We need to rid ourselves of the idea that 
Christianity is something extrinsic, — an after- 
thought put in after the man was finished, — a kind 
of free pass to heaven. We need to bear always 
in mind that it is rather the completion of an other- 
wise imperfect organization. It is the restoration 
of man to his original integrity. Without it he is 
only half made up. Religion does not naturalize a 
foreigner, but reinstate an heir. It does not take 
a man out of his hereditary place, and introduce 
him to one that is higher indeed, and safer, but 
unnatural. Religion is a rebinding of the soul to 
God, from whom it had cut loose. It is a restora- 
tion of the soul to its primal proximity to the Di- 
vine. There has been a fall. God made man 
upright. The Devil cast him down, he consenting. 
Christ seeks to set him once more erect, and when 
man, leaning on that strong arm, begins to lift 
himself out of the sloughs of sin, it is not a hand 
or a foot or a faculty that is lifted, but the whole 
man. Reason, judgment, imagination, wit, all 
gather themselves up from the miry clay, and be- 
gin to vfash their robes and make them white in 
the blood of the Lamb. Everything that was no- 
ble is still farther ennobled. Everything that w^as 
ignoble enters upon a process of disintegration and 
destruction. A rehgion that should repress the 



276 AMUSEMENTS. 

energies of the soul would, from that circumstance 
alone, be suspicious. Religion broadens, height- 
ens, deepens. It enlarges the domains of joy, 
and contracts the realms of sorrow. It robs grief 
of its sting, and gives zest and flavor to happiness. 
It turns calmness into delight, and content becomes 
exultation. Singing, writing, painting, planning, 
whatever ministered to ambition, pride, avarice, or 
any of the numerous retinue of selfishness, are 
wrenched away from the usurper, and marshalled, 
with acclamation, into the service of Christ. The 
author, further on, uses most just, judicious, and 
wise words in illustration of this, though they seem 
to contradict her former statements. " Such a life 
will seem less spiritual only because it has grown 
more natural ; the soul moves in an atmosphere 
which of itself brings it into contact with all great 
and enduring things, and it has only to draw in its 
breath to be filled and satisfied. I know not how 
to describe the grandeur and simplicity of the state 
that is no longer self-bounded, self-referring ; how 
great a thing to such a freed and rejoicing spirit 
th6 life in Christ Jesus seems." 

Nor can we believe that " the print of the Mas- 
ter's footsteps, if tracked with any degree of faith- 
fulness, will [necessarily] carry his own far out of 
the path of pleasure and distinction, and leave him 
amid scenes and among objects in which, save for 
this powerful attraction, he would have found 
nothing to delight in or to desire." God is not the 



AMUSEMENTS. 277 

God of the poor, the ignorant, the obscure, any 
more than he is of the rich, the learned, the dis- 
tinguished. Christians are harder on this class 
than is Christ. We can follow his footsteps to the 
house of the Pharisee as well as of the publican. 
Paul, the gentleman, the scholar, the aristocrat, 
was not one whit behind the very chiefest of the 
fishermen. The adaptation of Christianity to the 
poor is brought out in the Bible with great force, 
because that phase of it is the one most likely to 
be hidden, and needs therefore to be held up to 
continual prominence. But including the lowly is 
not excluding the lofty. They that have riches 
shall enter hardly, but they shall enter — through 
Christ. We cannot serve God and mammon, but 
we shall not serve God by giving up to mammon 
the kingdom wherewith we have been intrusted, 
and running away into the shelter of a monastery, 
or a nunnery, or a clique. " Occupy till I come," 
was his command. We must keep in the world, 
overcoming it, not overcome by it, — turning to 
Christ's service all pleasure, all distinction, all in- 
tellect, all wealth, — despoiling mammon of his 
treasures and adorning with them the temple of 
God. That which has been is not that which 
shall be. Behold, the former things are come to 
pass, and new things do I declare. The pomp 
and riches and glory of this world have been used 
to illustrate the reign of Satan, but another day 
shall dawn, to whose light the Gentiles shall come, 



278 AMUSEMENTS. 

and kings to the brightness of its rising, — he shall 
come whose right it is to reign. Glorious in his 
apparel, travelhng in the greatness of his strength, 
aU that is beautiful and grand and mighty shall go 
out to meet him. All the kingdoms of the earth 
shall swell his triumphal train, yea, even the earth 
herself shall be a crown of glory in the hand of 
the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our 
God. 

That, therefore, is but a flimsy and suspicious 
kind of religion that works from without, inward ; 
that keeps a man away from sinful pleasui'es, but 
does not keep him from wanting to go ; that sub- 
stitutes external restraints for internal promptings. 
It is probably better that a man should stop away 
from the gambling-houses because he is a church- 
member, than not to stop away at all. It is better 
that a woman should remain at home and go to 
bed at a seasonable hour, from fear of being called 
inconsistent, than that she should spend the night 
in dancing and wine-sipping. But if they look 
after the forbidden fruit with longing eyes, and 
wish the Church did not forbid them to pluck it, 
their religion cannot be anything worth mention- 
ing. It certainly cannot be very comfortable. 
So far as its requirements are concerned, they 
might as well go as wish to go. Christ wants vol- 
untary contribution, not forced taxation. I heard 
of a man once, who, when reproached for going 
to a pic-nic soon after his wife died, excused him- 



AMUSEMENTS. 279 

self by saying that he asked his wife's mother if 
she had any objection, and she said she had n't ! 
Such love is not worth much in the wear and 
tear of life. 

Therefore, also, the sacrifices which Christian- 
ity requires at the hands of its adherents are few 
and small. Literally speaking, it requires none, 
since it demands nothing that the noblest man- 
hood does not demand ; but even in the ordi- 
nary acceptation of the term, its sacrifices are not 
worthy to be compared with its privileges. The 
followers of Christ sometimes make requisitions 
which Christ himself does not. In blindness of 
mind they call that common and unclean which 
God hath cleansed, and insist that it be cast out 
and trodden under foot. An old lady, speaking 
of a merry young girl who had lately joined the 
church, said : " Yes, I think she is a Christian. 
I think there is a change, but Betsey will be 
Betsey." Of course she will. Did Christ ever 
require her to be anybody else ? But we, pruri- 
ent meddlers, rushing in where angels fear to 
tread, — we insist that the gay Betseys shall be 
transformed into sedate Susans, which is just as 
unnatural, un scriptural, and impossible as that the 
sedate Susans shall eflPervesce into gay Betseys. 
A great deal of the trouble arises from a miscon- 
ception of the nature and ends of amusements. 
There are those who think ""them a gross waste, if 
not a misuse, of time. There are many more who 



280 AMUSEMENTS. 

think anything like framing, planning, and arrang- 
ing for amusements to be a frivolous occupation, 
unworthy of a Christian, and indicative of a shal- 
low, worldly mind. It takes away the attention 
from serious and important things, and fixes it on 
those which are short-lived and trivial. So the 
case was stated in a discourse by a learned, elo- 
quent, and exemplary man, from none more than 
from whom should one expect sound reasoning 
and Gospel truth. He took, as he had a right to 
take, high ground. He looked upon the question 
of amusements in its relations to sin, — to man as 
a sinner. " Here is a world lying in sin," was his 
argument, — " estranged from God, and under his 
wrath and curse. What mockery to God for 
Christians to be planning amusements for such a 
world I " But this view of the subject, solemn as 
it is, is far-reaching and comprehensive. It em- 
braces, not the amusements only, but the occupa- 
tions of life. It is whether the attention of Chris- 
tians shall be given to any other matters than those 
whi-ch pertain directly to the salvation of sinners. 
It is whether Christian men shall give their time 
and money to the construction of an ocean tele- 
graph, while yet the day is far distant that shall 
echo from pole to pole the glad tidings of a Sav- 
iour's love. It is whether men shall build rail- 
roads and steamboats, while millions upon millions 
are rushing down the broad way that leads to de- 
struction. It is whether they shall erect pubhc 



AMUSEMENTS. 281 

baths, providing for the cleanliness of the body, 
while the soul is a sepulchre full of dead men's 
bones and all uncleanness. It is whether they 
shall feed the hungry and clothe the naked, while 
so many are perishing for want of the heavenly 
manna and the robe of Christ's righteousness. It 
is, in short, whether men shall buy and sell and 
get gain, so long as any remain out of the ark of 
Christ. 

It is useless to say that these, and other such 
schemes and occupations, have in view the health, 
life, or convenience of man, and are therefore es- 
sential, or at least useful and important. That 
is the very assertion made by those who believe 
it to be a Christian duty to provide amusements, 
and places the question at once on a different 
basis. They put amusements on precisely the 
same plane as professions and occupations. They 
say, and justly, that we must take men as they are, 
not as they might be, or as we should think best to 
have them. He who would benefit his kind must 
proceed on the premises God has given, not on 
hypothetical ones of his own. He must take into 
account that " all men are born babies," and for 
the most part stay babies all their lives, in a great- 
er or less degree. The child is not only the father 
of the man, but he is the man in large measure. 
The earth is one great school-house, and men and 
women are the boys and girls, grown up indeed, 
but boys and girls still. Sometimes they are ira- 



282 AMUSEMENTS. 

provements on tHeir juvenile selves. The passions 
have come more under control ; the gentler affec- 
tions have been cultivated ; the mind has been 
nourished and trained ; but too often a flimsy cov- 
ering of false politeness is thrown over radical 
defects. Mokanna's silver veil is used to hide 
features too hideous to be plainly revealed, but 
which often show through in spite of Mokanna. 
Self-will has become obstinacy ; zeal has become 
bigotry ; lazy shirking has become positive chi- 
canery. The average man is no better than he 
should be. 

This is not a flattering picture. I would gladly 
be proved to be in the wrong, for the sake of be- 
lie vino; that it is not a true one. But callino; a 
man an angel does not make him an angel ; and 
whether we do or do not believe in total depravity, 
w^e do not, as a general thing, lend our neighbor a 
hundred dollars without taking his note for it. A 
very able political newspaper remarks : " We have 
nothing to say of Original Sin as a theologic dog- 
ma ; but in politics it is as solid as the multiplica- 
tion-table." The first step in curing disease is to 
find out what the disease is. The first point in 
sohdng a problem is to have it correctly stated. 
Here we all agree that the disease is sin ; the 
problem is to evoh'e from moral chaos a world of 
symmetry and beauty. 

An old writer says, that he considers nothing 
human to be foreign to himself. If a heathen 



AMUSEMENTS, 283 

could saj this, so much more ought we to say it. 
Whatever concerns humanity concerns us all. 
Man is a triune being. He has a physical, intel- 
lectual, and moral nature. These are truisms, 
but it seems necessary that they should be stated, 
because we are apt to forget them, or to act as if 
we did not know them. Man's physical nature 
just as much needs to be provided for as his in- 
tellectual nature, and his intellectual as his moral 
nature, and vice versa. Each has its inalienable 
rights. No one is to be subordinated or sacrificed 
to the other. The claim of no one is paramount. 
It is just as wicked to cheat the body out of its 
just dues as it is to cheat the soul, and the soul as 
the body. The body has just as good claims to 
consideration as the mind, and the mind as the 
heart, and the heart as either of the others. The 
body is just as necessary to the soul as the soul to 
the body. Neither can exist in its present state 
without the other. Both can exist separate, but it 
will be no longer the same personality. The seces- 
sion of either dissolves the union. The secession 
of both does nothing more. 

This complicates matters. If a man existed 
in a state of pure intellect, he could be far more 
easily managed. It would be a comparatively sim- 
ple thing to minister to the mind diseased, if it 
were not so mixed up with the body. But man 
does not exist in a state of pure intellect, but of 
intellect, and carbon, lime, and water. You cannot 



284 AMUSEMENTS. 

lay your hand on a susceptibility of his soul that is 
not, or may not be, influenced by the susceptibih- 
ties of his body. All the emotions of his body so 
bear on the emotions of his soul, that it is often 
difficult to tell what is body and what is soul. 
He, then, who provides for the fullest symmet- 
rical development of every bodily power, is so far 
fulfilling the chief end of man, according to the 
Westminster Catechism, though he that stops there 
stops short of the glory of God. It is, therefore, 
no more mockery to God to plan amusements, than 
to plan employments, because the former have, 
though perhaps a humbler, yet certainly just as 
important a place in the Divine economy. The 
nature and extent of man's amusements have just 
as much bearing on his immortal nature, as the 
nature and extent of his work. Amusements are 
just as necessary to his spiritual development as 
work or worship. Right amusements are just as 
beneficial to him as wrono; amusements are delete- 
rious. They do not directly tend to repentance or 
growth in grace, neither does work ; but as God is 
uniformly to be found in the way of duty, recrea- 
tion being duty, he may be truly and acceptably 
served in recreation. 

The question narrows itself down to this. To 
give attention to so-called secular pursuits is wrong, 
or it is not. If it is, the habits of the Christian 
world must undergo a vast change. If it is not, 
amusements, in their selection and arrangement, 



AMUSEMENTS. 285 

are entitled to the same kind of interest and atten- 
tion as occupations. 

A religious newspaper tells a story of a young 
man who " became anxious about his soul. He 
resolved to call on a minister and ask his counsel. 
.... He found the minister standing in animated, 
not to say light conversation, with a couple of 
visitors, and arranging with them a visit to a gen- 
tleman in the country, who had a private ninepin- 
alley. The impression on the mind of the young 
man was very unhappy ; he could not open his 
mind to the minister, and he retired without hav- 
ing derived any benefit from the interview. He, 
erelong, became a careless, and, in the end, an 
abandoned sinner." 

Moral of the religious newspaper : " Things in 
themselves harmless are to be avoided, if they 
cause others to offend." 

Moral of ordinary observers : ministers must not 
engage in animated, particularly in light conversa- 
tion, and must not visit gentlemen who keep bowl- 
ing-alleys. 

But do you really mean, religious newspaper, 
that ministers are to be uniformly grave and seri- 
ous ? Does it not occur to you that the clergymen 
who are never light must be extremely heavy ? Is 
not the gravity of a man who is always grave nearly 
as worthless as the levity of a man who is always 
light ? Did not the Rev. Rowland Hill say that 
the man who is not a fool half the time is a fool 



286 ' AMUSEMENTS. 

all the time ? Is not too much nutritiveness just 
as bad a quality of food as too little, and did you 
never hear of people eating sawdust to restore the 
balance ? What kind of a picture would that be 
which w^as all shadows, and no lights, and what 
kind of people are they who would blot out the 
lights of the landscapes ? It is the Edmund 
Sparklers of society, you may be sure, who w^ant 
men " with no nonsense about them." Did you 
ever hear a high-souled, whole-hearted, clear- 
brained, large-minded, cultivated Christian object 
to " animated conversation," not to say ninepins ? 
And wdiat kind of conversation would you 
recoinmend between a minister and his chance 
visitors ? Shall he inchoate a treatise on politi- 
cal economy ? Shall he entertain them with 
the differential calculus ? Shall he chat of fixed 
fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute ? Do you 
not very well know that, if you should make a 
friendly call upon your pastor, and he should 
take you up in this way, you would be exceeding- 
ly tired ? Do you not, you who have so much to 
do w^ith ministers, — do you not know that many 
"who are the very salt of the earth, first in every 
good word and w^ork, are the many-sided men, — 
the men who touch fife at many points, — the men 
of quick sympathies, who joy with the joyous, and 
sorrow with the sorrowful, — who neither laugh 
nor weep from a sense of duty, but because they 
cannot help it ? Are you not now thinking of 



AMUSEMENTS. 287 

individuals, tender of heart, strong of will, sound 
of mind, pure of purpose, who are as full of mirth 
as a nut is of meat ? and would you have them 
abate one jot or tittle of that beautiful radiance 
that gleams over the surface of their lives, and 
lights up the dark paths around them, and so 
makes " a sunshine in a shad}^ place," because — 
Because what ? Put the case as strongly as you 
can. Bring in St. Paul, as you certainly will. " If 
meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no 
meat while the world standeth, lest I make my 
brother to offend." Grant them to be parallel 
cases, — which they are not, for if St. Paul did 
deny himself the meat which had been offered to 
idols, he could get plenty more which had not, 
whereas our ministers are warned off from the 
whole thing, — but granting them to be parallel, 
— suppose by abstaining you make a great many 
more to offend than you do by partaking, what 
then ? If a minister is himself, changing his 
moods according to his occupations, " from grave 
to gay, from lively to severe," he may, and prob- 
ably will, run counter to some men's ideal of a 
minister, and so lose influence in certain quarters. 
But, on the other hand, if he puts a restraint on 
himself, checks the natural flow of his spirits, and 
flats out into a dead level of (falsely so called) 
dignity, he will, it seems to me, run counter to a 
great many more ideals, and lose a great deal 
more influence, He will practically give in to 



288 AMUSEMENTS. 

tlie notion — I cannot dignify it with any higher 
name — that when men become ministers they 
cease to be men. They turn into a kind of or- 
ganic abstraction, a peripatetic sermon, — some- 
thing that may lawfully eat, drink, and sleep, but 
not clap, jest, or vote. But why ministers should 
unman themselves any more than doctors, or law- 
yers, or farmers, it is difficult to perceive. If 
it is right for lawyers to enjoy a joke, and to 
make one if they can, w^hy is it not right for min- 
isters ? Every man is responsible for all the good 
which he is capable of doing, — no more, no less. 
A lawyer is bound to fulfil every duty which de- 
volves upon him. Angels can no more. The 
greatest good is to be done by employing every 
faculty in doing to its utmost relative extent. 
God gave us none that is superfluous, none that 
must be lopped off before we can serve him ac- 
ceptably. He does not demand the sacrifice of 
any, but the consecration of every power. If we 
find people maintaining the contrary, we ought to 
disabuse them of so mischievous an idea, — not 
shape our course as if it were a correct one. We 
do not accept the rules of action which a worldly 
man adopts for himself; why should we those 
which he adopts for others ? If he is not trust- 
worthy to guide his own life, he certainly is not 
trustworthy to guide ours. What absurdity is it 
for me to check my natural and innocent gayety, 
because a man who has never begun to shape his 



AMUSEMENTS. 289 

own life by Gospel precepts, and has never im- 
bibed the Gospel spirit, sets up the idea that such 
gayetj is inconsistent with religion ? Why is my 
liberty judged of another man's conscience, espe- 
cially when that conscience is an unenlightened 
one ? If we do not give a man credence when 
he justifies his own course, why should we when 
he condemns ours ? What kind of a rule is that 
which works only one way? What kind of evi- 
dence is that which is invalid against one man, 
but valid against another ? 

It is partly the fault of the Christian w^orld, that 
the young man referred to went away disappoint- 
ed. " Public opinion " should not be allowed to 
fall into such an error as that sprightly conver- 
sation should seem to be incompatible with the 
warmest piety. If the young man had been 
properly educated, he would have know^n that 
the minister could sympathize with his sadness 
none the less for having just sympathized with 
gladness. Nay, he would have considered it 
rather an indication of real sympathy. It is a 
little sentimental, but a very true saying, that 

" Hearts that vibrate sweetest pleasure 
Thrill the deepest notes of woe." 

The soul that easily lays hold on joy lays easily 
hold on sorrow. Though the minister was not 
one to whom he could open his mind, it was not 
owing to the " animated conversation," nor to the 
bowling-alley, whatever he may have thought. 
13 s 



290 AMUSEMENTS. 

The minister may have been a frivolous, impious 
man, a cumberer of the ground, a blind guide, a 
shepherd whose sheep looked up and were not 
fed ; but that did not indicate it. The greatest 
gravity of demeanor may coexist with the weakest 
character and the pettiest ends ; and of all fri- 
volity, solemn frivolity is the most repulsive. It 
not only pains, but exasperates. One is not only 
annoyed by the littleness, but indignant at the 
deception. Good sense is a good thing, and good 
nonsense is a good thing, but nonsense setting up 
to be sense is outrageous. 

What punishment is severe enough for him 
who would curtail " animated conversation " ? 
Who of us that has been dragged through weary 
hours of " stale, flat, and unprofitable " common- 
placeness would not have welcomed the advent of 
any one, man or woman, who could , have stirred 
us up with a little animation, even though it 
had been transferred bodily from the rhymes and 
chimes of Mother Goose ? Who of us that has 
ever known the genial glow and happiness which 
a royal mind brings when, leaving its cares, which 
never are burdens, leaving its matters of state, 
leaving all the insignia of its royalty, it comes 
into the drawing-room of daily life, and draws 
around it all grace and gladness, and sportive 
fancy, and happy love, and wild winsomeness, by 
a spontaneous outgush of the same blessed and 
blessing qualities, — who that has ever basked in 



AMUSEMENTS. 291 

the sunshine of such a presence, but must feel an 
uprising of wrath against that prurient piety which 
dares so much as lay a finger on the hem of its 
beautiful garments ? 

O the mischief that is clone by this wanton, 
wilful, wicked endeavor to curtail the sources of 
happiness which our Creator has given us ! to dig 
up and destroy the fair growths whose roots go 
deep down into our nature ! It is a Sisyphean task. 
It never can be done ; for it is a crime against na- 
ture, and nature breaks out in perpetual protest. 
Its evil effects are everywhere visible. Young 
people, unnaturally restrained, grow stunted and 
narrow, or burst out into a license which is but 
the travesty of liberty. The Word of God is 
brought to bear on objects which do not come 
within its range. The anathemas which are per- 
tinent only to guilt are launched on innocence, 
and moral distinctions are subverted. Look at 
dancing, — one of the most healthful, the most 
civil, the most delightful, and the most beautiful of 
amusements, — singularly adapted to the vitality, 
activity, and high spirits of the young, and greatly 
conducive to ease of manner, grace of carriage, 
and suavity of address ; yet put under ban by 
whole communities, on the most frivolous pre- 
texts. Some honestly think it wrong. Why ? 
Not in its essence, — nobody thinks it is wrong 
in itself, — but because "it leads to dissipation;" 
But it does not lead to dissipation. It leads away 



292 AMUSEMENTS. 

from dissipation. There is wliist, — a game that 
can find employment for the closest attention, the 
minutest observation, the strongest memory, and 
the soundest reasoning, yet of so wide a sweep 
that it can interest and delight a child of ten. 
Whole communities look upon this, too, as a 
snare of the Devil to entrap souls. Why ? Not 
because it is wrong of itself, but " it leads to 
gambling." But it does not lead to gambhng. 
It leads away from gambling. Let a family of 
children have an hour, or two, or three, in the 
evening, devoted to social amusement, and if they 
have all been working during the day, as they 
ought, this is none too much. Suppose them to 
engage in dancing. Some one goes to the piano, 
and the rest — father, mother, and all — take the 
floor. Occasionally their young friends are in- 
vited in to spend the evening, or such portion of 
it as they are allowed before sleep. Occasionally 
they spend the evening out, generally accompa- 
nied by father or mother, or both. Perhaps the 
little ones sit down with their parents to a game 
of whist, — the very youngest very eager to play 
his very best, that he may have a chance to play 
again. The evenings are varied ; sometimes it is 
checkers, or backgammon, or blind man's buflP, or 
singing, or reading aloud, but every evening has 
in its bosom something pleasant for the children 
to look forward to, and back upon. The home is 
a, little community, with its round of happiness as 



AMUSEMENTS. 293 

well as of tasks ; will dissipation be likely to in- 
vade such a home ? The haunts of vice are the 
haunts of restlessness, uneasiness, unhappiness ; 
what attractions have they for one who can find 
all their pleasures without their pains around his 
own hearth-stone ? Examine statistics, and see 
how many of the patrons and victims of gambling- 
saloons were accustomed in their youth to play 
cards around the evening table, and to dance be- 
fore the evening fire, with fathers and mothers 
who loved them and prayed for them and watched 
over them. 

Christians are verily guilty in this matter. Mul- 
titudes believe and avow that dancing is not wrong, 
but they will not countenance it because many do 
think it wrong, and the many who do think it 
wrong; think it not wrong in itself, but dangerous 
in its associations and tendencies. It is an amuse- 
ment in which the World indulges, and therefore 
the Church must give it up. Absurd ! Let Chris- 
tian families adopt it, not covertly, apologetically, 
as many do, but honestly and openly, and its as- 
sociations will very soon come round right. An 
innocent thing will not long be held disreputable 
after reputable people have taken it up. No mat- 
ter if the World does talk about a " dancing 
Church" and a "card-playing Christian." The 
World does not decide questions of right and wrong 
for the Church, nor shall the World monopolize the 
best of anything. Let the World understand that 



294 AMUSEMENTS. 

the Churcli is not to be fended off from any occu- 
pation or amusement that she judges wholesome, 
because the "World chooses to hoist the red flag 
of disease. Let the Church do a thing because it 
is right, not because the World will pat it on the 
shoulder, and say, " Good child, good child." Let 
the Church abstain from an act because it is wrong, 
not because, if she does it, the World will say, 
"Behold, thou art become as one of us." It is 
disgraceful bondage, — an insult to Christ. His 
cause does not want the patronage of the World. 
If it cannot stand on its own intrinsic value, let 
it fall at once. Moreover, the Christianity that 
can be distinguished from worldliness only by its 
acceptance or rejection of dancing, is a very in- 
significant article. Let your light so shine before 
men, that they, seeing your good works, may 
glorify your Father which is in heaven. Be so 
humble, so devout, so sincere, so honest, so help- 
ful, so faithful a Christian, that the World, the 
flesh, and the Devil shall say, '* Dancing cannot be 
wrong, for he dances." You can hardly read your 
title clear to mansions in the skies, you can have 
hardly begun to live the Divine life, if men say, 
" He cannot be much of a Christian, for he 
dances." 

I acknowledge that the amusements in question 
have dangerous tendencies, but I should like to 
know if there is anything in the world that has 
not. They lead to dissipation and gambling; so 



AMUSEMENTS, 295 

eating leads to dyspepsia, and drinking leads to 
drunkenness, and a great many things lead to a 
great many others. But because men have been 
drowned in the sea, shall we never step into a 
bath-tub ? Because a house is burned down, shall 
we never build a fire in the kitchen-stove ? Be- 
cause some people tell lies, shall other people not 
talk at all ? Because one man has the heart-burn, 
and another delirium tremens, shall there be no 
more cakes and coffee? Nay, verily. This is 
not God's way of procedure. He gave Adam and 
Eve permission and desire to eat freely of every 
tree in the garden, with one exception, and that 
exception was within easy reach. He might have 
saved them and us from sin and suffering by pla- 
cing all fruit beyond their reach, but he chose not. 
With a full knowledge that his gift would be 
abused, he yet did not withhold it. In like man- 
ner, he has given us all things richly to enjoy. 
We may abuse them, turning enjoyment into a 
sin, but that is not the fault of the giver or of the 
gift. The remedy for the abuse of a thing is not 
to destroy it, but to use it. Destruction should 
be reserved only for what is in itself wicked or 
useless. The remedy for dyspepsia is pure air, 
wholesome food, thorough mastication and saliva- 
tion, regular and sufficient exercise, steady occu- 
pation, and ease of mind, — not starvation. Star- 
vation is indeed a remedy, but it is a fearfully 
expensive one, and the dwarfed and misshapen 



296 AMUSEMENTS. 

natures of many of our young people, and old 
people too, show how fatally injudicious is the 
policy pursued in their cultivation. Amusements 
they must have, — pure, wholesome, lawful, grace- 
ful if you will ; but if you will not, then impure, 
ruinous, disgraceful. 

There is great disagreement of opinion and 
practice in the churches. There are many com- 
munities in which dancing is as innocent as kite- 
flying, and a great deal more common. There 
are many Christian families in which whist is an 
acknowledged and ordinary recreation. This fact 
should have its influence. It should lead those 
who disapprove to be modest. When any num- 
ber of men, whose intelhgence is respectable, and 
whose Christian character is unexceptionable, do 
something of which you disapprove, but which 
even you do not regard as a sin in itself, it becomes 
you to be measured in your disapproval. Because 
your friend is as good and as sensible as you, it 
does not follow that he is in the right and you in 
the wrong ; but it does follow that there is so 
much basis for his differing opinion, that he need 
not be a knave or a fool for holding it. Because 
a dozen churches allow dancing, it does not follow 
that it is right, and 3'our church must go to dan- 
cing forthwith ; but it does follow that the oppo- 
sition to your views is sufficiently respectable to 
suggest the possibility that you may be wrong; 
and there is a possibility, at least, that such oppo- 



AMUSEMENTS. 297 

sition is fonnded on a need of nature, and not on 
total depravity. And another thing follows : when 
whole communities in a city hold such opinions, 
sporadic cases in villages should be treated with 
at least respect. It is hardly fair to hunt a man 
down for believing, in a country church, what 
scores and scores believe and practise in a city 
church, without the smallest remark, or even no- 
tice, from anybody. When there are two sides 
to a thing, and a man tells you he thinks it is 
right to take that side, you have nothing further 
to do. You may give him your own views as 
forcibly as you please, you may strive to enlighten 
his conscience by every means in your power, but 
you may not attempt to coerce him by any of 
those petty persecutions which you have so well 
at command. You can do it. If you are both by 
birth and education narrow-minded, it is not at 
all improbable that you will do it, and a good deal 
of mischief into the bargain ; but it will be the 
old Adam in you, and not the new, that will get 
the commission. 

Let no man despise amusements. It is a subject 
which demands the most careful consideration. 
It should be just as truly a part of the Church 
economy as the sacraments. Mistakes here keep 
people out of the Church, and wound weak con- 
sciences, and confuse weak brains, and prevent 
growth of grace in the Church. Let our Christian- 
ity be comprehensive, symmetrical, well-developed. 

13* 



298 AMUSEMENTS. 

Let our young people bring all their bounding 
spirits, all the dew and freshness and gladness 
of their youth, to the Lord, — assuredly knowing 
that they are made in the very image of God ; 
that their mirthfulness came from him just as 
much as their memories ; that the ringing laugh 
and the merry song, in their proper place, are ac- 
ceptable to him, as well as the broken and contrite 
heart, and the fervent and effectual prayer, in its 
place. The Church wants all the elasticity, and 
cheerfulness, and sprightliness, and wit, and humor, 
that there is in the world, whether it belongs to 
the young people or the old, and will find plenty 
of work for it to do. God is not the God of the 
dead, but of the living ; not of the sorrowful only, 
but of the rejoicing. Feasting and fasting can 
and should be done alike to his glory. Jesus was 
present not only at the tomb in Bethany, but at 
the marriage in Cana. I know no reason why he 
should not be present at merry-makings now, as 
well as eighteen hundred years ago. He is the 
same yesterday and to-day and forever. He does 
not afflict the children of men because he likes to 
do it. He rejoices in all innocent happiness. The 
boy need not abate one jot or tittle of his love for 
play, because of his love for God. The sudden 
upspringing of the one, does not necessitate the 
decrease of the other. The Christian ought, all 
other things being equal, to be in school the 
closest student ; on the play-ground, the hardest 



AMUSEMENTS. 299 

player ; In the workshop, the nicest workman ; 
behind the counter, the most valuable clerk ; in 
the battle, the sturdiest lighter. Whatsoever 
things are true, whatsoever things are honest, 
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are 
pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 
things are of good report, — all, all belong to 
Christianity. 

Christ spoke the simple, literal truth, when he 
said that his yoke was easy, and his burden light. 
When the followers of Christ had to follow him to 
the rack, the stake, and the scaffold, to stripes, 
to the mouths of lions, to trials of cruel mockings 
and scourgings, to bonds and imprisonment, there 
was reason to speak of sacrifices. But, reluctant 
as we may be to confess it, the lines have fallen to 
us in pleasant places. The cup which our Father 
hath given us is sweet, as well as healthfiil, and 
it is no mysterious and hidden love which says, 
" Drink ye all of it." 




X. 



GOD'S WAY. 




ND seeing the multitudes, he went up 

into a mountain ; and when he was set, 

his disciples came unto him. And he 

opened his mouth, and taught them, 

saying, 

"Blessed " 

"^?essec?," — fit beginning of the first recorded 
public discourse of Him whose life on earth was 
the blessing of the world. 

In following those sacred feet over the hills of 
Judsea, we see that their constant errand was one 
of love. It was not alone that great, mysterious 
love wherewith he loved us before the world was, 
but the steadfast, human love, the love of the 
man-Christ, the tenderness which displayed itself 
constantly in every-day life, — which no coldness 
could chill, no stupidity tire, no perversity lessen, 
— a tenderness which it should be our strongest 
purpose to imitate, as it is our highest privilege to 
share. 



GOD'S WAY. 301 

And the common people heard him gladly. 
Great multitudes followed him. Populous Galilee, 
stranger Decapolis, Jerusalem, queen city of Ju- 
daea, and the Pagan countries that lay beyond 
Jordan, poured out their myriads to listen to the 
words of one who spake as never man spake. 
From lanes and alleys, from the purlieus of pov- 
erty and vice, from the Ann Streets, the Five 
Points, the St. Giles's of Palestine they came, the 
poor, famishing people, overborne in the great 
world-battle, over-weary with laboring up the Dif- 
ficult hills ; the obscure, ignorant, sad-eyed people, 
with whom life had been but a losing game, who, 
through weakness and wickedness had made little 
headway, — they came flocking around this new 
light whose soft shining had glimmered down even 
to them. They brought their sick to this wonderful 
Jesus, whom a vague rumor called the Christ, and 
he healed them. They brought their little chil- 
dren, and he laid loving hands upon their drooping 
heads, and blessed them. Strange words of cheer 
fell upon their sorrowful hearts, — tender, consol- 
ing, hopeful, helpful words. " That ye may be 
the children of your Father which is in heaven.'* 
Poor and miserable and blind and naked, — de- 
spised of the great ones of the earth, domineered 
over by the chief priests and Pharisees, could they 
be the children of the Lord of heaven ? How 
sweetly on their anxious, care-worn hearts fall the 
affectionate words, " Take no thought for the mor- 



302 GOUS WAY. 

row.' Your Heaven] j Father knowetli that ye 
have need of all these things." There are strong 
men standing before him, faint with the burden 
and heat of the day, and his loving heart bids 
them " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are 
heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." There is 
comfort and help for all. None are sent empty 
away. None are so insignificant that he passes 
them by. No service is so lowly that he will not 
glorify it. Only a cup of cold water to the least 
of these little ones shall have its reward, — shall be 
laid to the account of the King of kings. None 
are so great, so rich, so renowned, that he bids 
them trust to their greatness, their riches, their 
renown. When they come to him in trouble, he 
takes them just as readily to the arms of his lov- 
ing-kindness. The outcast, loathsome leper feels 
a wild hope leap up in his heart, yet dares not ask 
the boon he craves, but, bowing, humbly worships 
the omnipotent Teacher. " Lord, if thou wilt, 
thou canst make me clean." " I will ; be thou 
clean," is the instant response, and at one gentle 
touch the leper arises a new man. The ruler 
turns to Jesus, if perhaps his young daughter, 
lying already dead, may be restored to his arms, 
and Jesus takes the cold hand in his, and life 
pulses once more through the veins. Mind and 
body claim alike his care. A man of sorrows and 
acquainted with grief, he bears in his own the 
sorrow and the griefs of all other hearts. He says 



GOUS WAY. 303 

to the palsied cripple, " Son, be of good cheer," — 
to the long-sufFering woman, "Daughter, be of 
good comfort." 

He never brake the bruised reed, nor quenched 
the smoking flax. When his disciples, small in 
wisdom, small as yet in faith, were terrified at his 
miraculous approach, he did not even chide them 
that their long intercourse with him had not given 
them more confidence. He remembered that they 
were dust, and hastened to reassure them. " Be 
of good cheer. It is I, be not afraid." He knew 
that the truth must be admitted little by little. 
" All men cannot receive this saying." Even in 
the hour of parting he repressed the throbbing of 
his full heart in compassion for their weakness. 
" I have many things to say to you, but ye cannot 
bear them now." Where men saw nothing to 
pity, he pitied. The disciples never dreamed that 
it concerned them whether the multitudes who 
hung upon their master's words were hungry or 
not, but the Master had compassion on them be- 
cause they had nothing to eat, and he would not 
send them away fasting. Importunity did not vex 
him. The blind men clamored so loudly and per- 
sistently, that the crowd around were shocked at 
the indecorum ; but Jesus had compassion on them, 
and touched their eyes. Hatred did not inflame 
him. Even while pronouncing the death-doom of 
the wicked city which had killed his prophets, 
stoned his messengers, and should yet crucify him- 



304 GOD'S WAY. 

self, lie wept over it, yearning with more than 
motherly love. Treachery could not alienate him. 
For Peter's shameful weakness, desertion, end 
denial there was only the earnest question, " Lov- 
est thou me ? " Trouble could not move him to 
selfishness. In the last hours, when his soul was 
exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, and his 
human heart craved human sympathy and found 
it not, — even then his gentle reproach sighed it- 
self into tender excusing, — " The spirit indeed is 
willing, but the flesh is weak." And not with- 
standing all coldness, indifference, misunderstand- 
ing, betrayal, his last bequest was love. " Lo, I 
am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
world," — and while he blessed them, he was part- 
ed from them, and carried up into heaven. 

Well might the common people hear him glad- 
ly, - — him who made the lowliest among them 
kings and priests unto God. Well might they 
stand around him, a living breastwork against the 
hostile Pharisees. Well might they come unto 
him, and seek him, and stay him, that he should 
not depart from them. Well might they spread 
their garments in the way, and ring out his trium- 
phant entry into the Beautiful City, " Hosanna 
to the Son of David ! blessed is he that cometh in 
the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest ! " 

I see no reason why Christianity should not be 
advanced in the world in precisely the same ratio 
as Christian teachers follow the example of Christ : 



GOUS WAY. 305 

and by Christian teachers I mean those who are 
Christians at all ; for every man is set to be a 
preacher of Christ, apart from any laying on of 
hands. Christ's mission, indeed, was not of conso- 
lation alone. It was of denunciation also. He 
was a savor of death unto death, as well as of life 
unto life. But salvation was the end, not destruc- 
tion. Destruction was in full play already. He 
came to seek and to save. Glad tidings of great 
joy to all people, — Glory to God in the highest, 
and on earth peace, good-will to men, — was the 
birth-song of the Messiah. And it is to be ob- 
served that his severest wrath was visited, not 
upon the people, however vile, but upon the lead- 
ers, the respectable Scribes and Pharisees, the 
honorable men who dishonored the land ; teachers 
who perverted the right ways of the Lord ; shep- 
herds whose hungry sheep looked up and were not 
fed ; dogs in the manger," who would neither go 
into the kingdom of heaven themselves nor suffer 
others to go in. On them fell the weight of hisv 
woes. For the people, blind, misled, ignorant, fui 
of petty interest, petty ambitions, petty schemes 
incapable of broad views, barren of high aspira- 
tions, treading the narrow circle of their narrow 
lives with scarcely a look beyond, — for them 
there was instruction, sympathy, encouragement ; 
a pointing to something higher, — to a future rest 
for the weary, to many mansions for the homeless; 
words that should lead them, but not too rapidly 



306 GOUS WAY 

or too suddenly, to the serene uplands that suburb 
the Heavenly City. " O earth, earth, earth, hear 
the word of the Lord." " Comfort ye, comfort ye 
my people, saith your God." 

In all lives there is an under-current of sadness. 
In many lives there is more of shadow than of sun. 
The burden presses heavily. There are few homes 
in which disease and death have not made sad in- 
roads. There are few hearts which do not bear 
the foot-prints of disappointment, — none which do 
not need the glad tidings of great joy, — the "Be 
of 2;ood cheer " with which Christ so often saluted 
the suffering believer when he was on earth. It 
is not that the Bible should be expurgated, — that 
milk and water should be substituted for meat, — 
but that the people should be comforted in sorrow 
and calmed in trouble, — that Christ should be 
shown. Saviour, Deliverer, Redeemer from sin and 
suffering, — that faint emotions should be recog- 
nized, feeble efforts encouraged, little leanings to 
good made the most of, knottiest points reserved 
for dexterous fingers, — that it should not be so 
continually dinged into men's ears that they are 
corrupt, as it should be whispered that Christ is 
holy. Is this preaching " smooth doctrine " ? 
Well, what of it ? Did not Christ come on pur- 
pose to make things smooth for us ? The world 
is surely rough enough. It bristles with thorns ; 
its brambles are continually rasping us. All along 
these foui" thousand years the way is tracked with 



GOJyS WAY. 307 

bloody feet. Let us have tte smooth, sweet doc- 
trines of the Gospel, oil of joy, and balm of conso- 
lation, grapes of Beulah, and honey of Canaan ; 
for it is not the will of your Father which is in 
heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. 
Smooth doctrine! Is it not Christ's own doctrine? 
And if it was not too smooth for the Jews, is it 
too smooth for us ? Is the American populace any 
viler than the Hebrew populace ? Yet for one 
word of rebuke to them the Master spoke a hun- 
dred of counsel and comfort. It was not " Shame 
upon your pride ! " but " Blessed are the poor in 
spirit P' — not " Your cruelty is odious," but 
" Blessed are the merciful ! " And who does not 
know that people are a thousand times more likely 
to be lured to virtue than shamed from vice ? 

Now, of all times, let us learn what that mean- 
eth, " I will have mercy, and not sacrifice." A 
sound of battle is in the land, and there is sorrow 
on the sea. The people may come up never so 
bravely to the crisis, conscious of its magnitude, 
and fired with sacred fury. But no enthusiasm of 
victory, no heroism of sacrifice, can dazzle out the 
agony. Aching hearts go up to the house of the 
Lord on every Sabbath day, hearts wrung with the 
pain of parting, heavy with fearful foreboding, — 
anxious, sad, unrestful. It is not that they regret 
their offering. They would not keep back theii 
precious things from the altar; but when the smokt 
of sacrifice is gone up, and they sit silent in theii 



608 GOUS WAY. 

desolate homes, all the waves and the billows of 
sorrow rush over them. 

O, if they could only see Jesus standing with 
outstretched arms ! If they could only hear the 
Divine voice: "Let not your heart be troubled, 
neither let it be afraid." " My peace I give unto 
you.'* " I will not leave you comfortless." " In 
the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good 
cheer ; I have overcome the world." 

" Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your 
God." Fathers and mothers, whose sons have 
gone to battle, whose sharpest pang at parting was 
lest it might be forever, who would have given up 
your beloved joyfully at your country's call had 
you but been assured that their eternal happiness 
was secure, — take comfort. 

To the soul, time and space are not. The body 
knows them well, as foes to be killed, or friends to 
be enjoyed, advantages to be secured, or difficulties 
to be surmounted. But the soul cares for none of 
these things. With one bound she overleaps them 
all, and stands in the storied past, or the mystical 
future. She wanders, at her own sweet will, 
among the delights of Eden, or of the Millennium. 
The eye looks admiringly upon the soft gleam of 
the evening star in the glowing West, and anon 
the soul is there. The eye reads of the great 
white throne, and the soul bows before it. In 
all her motions she is impetuous. Thought, will, 
hope, despair, passion, require but a moment for 



GOD'S WAY. 309 

the intensest action. A decision is instantaneous. 
A life-long purpose is formed while the pendulum 
swings once. Gratitude, love, and adoration 
may flood the heart at one throb, and fertilize it 
forever. The young hero who has just come back, 
pale and still, to the home he left " burning with 
high hope," went away from us in a moment. One 
moment the fatal bullet crashed in to the lair of 
life ; the next, the startled soul sped out into the 
great unknown. Bat before him to God went a 
prayer. From the already paling lips burst forth 
one sudden — who shall say unheard — cry, " My 
God ! " 

" My God ! " What hope and love and trust, 
what awe and shock and terror have not those 
words embodied ! When calamity comes sudden- 
ly, and the soul is hurled from her routine, how 
quickly her earthliness and selfishness, even such 
as is innocent, fall off* from her, and she turns, 
strong and straight, to her Maker ! In these 
eventful moments there needs no argument to 
prove, no inducement to persuade. Instinctively 
she recosinizes her Author. True as the rivulet 
to the ocean, this life flows on toward the Infinite 
life. Repentance and love and faith unfeigned 
may be all compacted in a heart-beat. It has been 
quaintly said of a sailor to whom death came in a 
misstep among the shrouds : 

" Betwixt the mast-head and the ground 
God's mercy sought, is mercy found." 



310 GOUS WAY. 

In her every-day life the soul is dainty and co- 
quettish. She treads coyly. She advances with 
retrogressions. Never so trivial a fear, or whim, 
or fancy, shall suffice to keep her back from God ; 
but in the awful presence of a great fact, or a haz- 
ardous future, she rends away instantly all affecta- 
tions, and lays hold on God with a strong, unre- 
laxing grapple ; and God, be sure, will not wrench 
oif the hand that clincrs to him. The soul that 
flies to him in fear, and the soul that nestles to him 
in love, shall alike find protection and consola- 
tion. It may be only at the close of a long life, 
that the claims, or the attractiveness, or the 
power of God is felt. Wrong, wrong ! Yet, so 
good is God, so long-suflPering, so rich in mercy, 
that even then he forgiveth iniquity, transgression, 
and sin. Even at the eleventh hour his hand is 
not shortened, nor his ear deaf; for his mercy en- 
dureth forever. Let none despair for his loved 
ones. The same love is around them now that has 
been around them from the first moment that saw 
them cradled in your arms. Commit your care 
unto God, for he careth for you and for them. 
Pray for them, be instant in season and out of sea- 
son, and trust in God. Their hearts are tender 
when they think of you, and God is very near a 
heart that loves. The solemn exigencies of the 
horn' are messages from him. The danger that 
impends and confronts is his agent for good ; and 
as your boy walks his night-watch, or lies down 



GOD'S WAY. 311 

beneath the stars, or rises up for the inevitable 
conflict and the possible death, be sure the fa- 
therly God, whom you worship, is not far off. 
Never to your ear may come his murmur of peni- 
tence and prayer. His soul may sigh itself out 
amid the smoke and thunder of battle. But Christ 
walks among the wounded and the dying, pouring 
in oil and wine, healing the broken in heart, and 
binding up their wounds. He hears their confes- 
sion and petition or ever it be breathed, and long 
may be the bliss though short the shrift. Trust 
in God. 

" My God!" it is the human heart bearing in- 
voluntary witness to the fatherliness of the Father. 
The brave boy, full of vigorous life, met death at 
the onset. The young heart that was so warm 
and true, that left behind, with thoughtful tender- 
ness, its love and blessing, and last good-by, went 
not to an unknown God. How it had throbbed 
before, we do not know ; but if, in that last, wild 
pulse, it claimed sonship and redemption, w^ho shall 
say that, through Infinite love, it found not recog- 
nition ? 

And this God is our God for ever and ever. 
He will be our guide even unto death. We can 
never begin too early to love him. We do not 
know that now is ever too late. 

The Old Testament has sometimes fallen into 
disrepute, because of the sternness and severity 
which it displays. The God of the Old Testa- 



312 GOUS WAY. 

ment has been thought by some to be an aveng- 
ing God, — strict to mark miquity, — visiting 
transgression and sin v^dth his wrath and curse, 
ordaining wars of extirpation, — reveahng power 
indeed, and inspiring awe, but not awakening 
love, or exciting any of those warm emotions that 
fill and flood the soul in that New Testament 
wherein Christ records his behests. It is true 
that law is prominent in the Old, and Gospel in 
the New Testament. Sinai is not Calvary. Yet, 
scattered up and down those sacred pages are 
countless and unfaihng tokens of the loving-kind- 
ness of the Father. The way is rocky and rough, 
as needs must be, but fairest flowers spring all- 
along, and their fragrance pours on the air a per- 
petual sweetness. From Genesis to Malaclii, as 
well as from Matthew to the final Revelation, wit- 
ness after witness testifies that God is gracious and 
long-suffering, slow to anger, and of great mercy. 
The Father and the Son are one, and their name 
is love. 

We can see it in God's treatment of Elijah. 
There seems to have been a time in the life of that 
wise and pious prophet, when he was utterly dis- 
couraged and dispirited. He had shown himself 
faithful and fearless. He had dared to beard the 
lion in his den. He had dared to prophesy evil 
to the atrocious Ahab. Face to face, at peril 
of his life, he hurled back Ahab's accusation, and 
declared, " I have not troubled Israel, but thou 



GOD'S WAY. 313 

and thy father's house." He had dared, pubHcl}^ 
before the king and the people, to slay four hun- 
dred and fifty of the prophets of Baal. Then his 
courage failed him. The moment he found that 
Jezebel was on his track, he lost heart and hope. 
She was a woman whose ability was equalled only 
by her wickedness ; and when a woman gives her 
mind to iniquity, she can generally do a great deal 
more in that line than a man. So, when he heard 
the oath that Jezebel had sworn against him, he 
immediately arose and went for his life ; and reach- 
ing the wilderness, he sat down under a juniper- 
tree, and in bitterness of soul requested for himself 
that he might die. If God saw and spoke and 
acted like a man, Elijah would most likely have 
received a severe reprimand. " What is this ? " 
an earthly Master would have said. " Why 
this sudden eclipse of faith ? Whence this cul- 
pable and monstrous ingratitude ? What ground 
have I ever given you for distrust ? Have I not 
always protected you ? Has a single hair of your 
head been harmed? When Israel was famishing 
and panting through the long years of drought, 
did I not feed you daily, pressing even the birds 
of the air into your service ? Did I not restore a 
dead child to life at your prayer, and send down 
fire to consume your burnt-offering? Have I 
ever deserted you at a pinch ? Have I not al- 
ways honored you before the people ? And now, 
through fear of one wicked woman, you are ready 

14 



314 GOUS WAY. 

to die ! Die, then, since you are weak enough to 
desire it ! Leave my service, if you have so little 
faith. I will choose a worthier man to be my 
servant." 

God did not so. Our Father in heaven knew 
his fainting prophet's frame, and remembered 
that he was but dust. Elijah was, doubtless, 
over-weary from his headlong fright and flight. 
In the days of excitement that had preceded, 
probably his meals had been irregular, his sleep 
broken, and his health, in consequence, had be- 
come impaired. He had left his servant behind, 
and, unaccustomed himself to minister to his own 
personal wants, he doubtless experienced grave 
annoyance from that source. Uncertain of what 
lay before him, faint, perhaps, from lack of food, 
and weary with his rapid journey, the doors of 
his soul were wide open to the demons of de- 
spair, and Satan is always ready to enter in and 
take possession. His body acted on his soul, 
his soul reacted on his body, and altogether he 
"was in a very melancholy way. But God knew 
all about it, and what did he do ? Chide him 
and punish him, and so break the bruised reed ? 
No ; the first thing the angel did was to prepare 
him a nice warm supper, and make him eat. 
Blessed forerunner of those truly Christian min- 
isters who make straight through the yearning 
stomachs of starving men a highway for the re- 
ligion of Christ ! And after Elijah had still fur- 



GOUS WAY. 315 

ther been refreshed by sleep, the gentle touch of 
the angel awoke him once more, and the heavenly 
voice compassionately bade him eat because the 
journey is too great. Not a syllable of chiding. 
He was not yet strong enough to receive it. But 
hiding in a cave among the mountains, the word 
of the Lord came to him, " What doest thou here, 
Elijah ? " Even then the reproach is more in the 
accents than in the words. Lightning, and earth- 
quake, and great, strong wind, were not hurled 
against him, but the still, small voice melted into 
his soul. More than this, his sympathizing Lord 
gave him also Elisha for a disciple, companion, sub- 
stitute, and successor, and comforted him with the 
assurance that he was not the sole survivor of 
God's worshippers, but that seven thousand were 
left in Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal. 
We hear no more of Elijah's want of faith. God's 
method with him was successftd. When after- 
wards he was commanded to go down to Ahab, 
he went straightway, and boldly charged him with 
having wrought evil in the sight of the Lord. 
Kings, or queens, or soldiers seem thenceforth to 
have had no terrors for him ; and having fought a 
good fight, the chariot of fire and the horses of 
fire bore him to the heavenly city. 

The story of Jonah is one at which people are 
somewhat inclined to look askance. But, in judg- 
ing of all narratives, you do not fasten upon one 
incident to the exclusion of the rest. You look 



316 GOD'S WAY. 

upon the whole, and upon its bearings. Of all 
the books of the Old Testament, one we can least 
spare is Jonah. It is at once most human and most 
divine. It teaches, in the most gentle, delicate, and 
exquisite manner, a lesson which every one sorely 
needs, and it shows to us God, the God of the Old 
Testament, the God of Sinai, the God of justice, 
a God of fatherly tenderness, compassion, forbear- 
ance, — caring, loving, forgiving. We cannot give 
up Jonah for an improbability. We believe thou- 
sands of them every day. A generation that is 
credulous of Bhtz, Anderson, and Houdin need 
not be incredulous of the Bible. If the skill of the 
created can give tlie lie to our senses, surely we 
need not try to shorten the hand of the Creator. 

God chose Jonah to carry his message to Nin- 
eveh, — Jonah, an insubordinate, cowardly, nar- 
row-minded, short-sighted, testy, hot-tempered, - 
cruel, impulsive, insolent man, — not at all the 
person we should have suggested for such an em- 
bassv. But if Jonah had not been Jonah, where 
would our lesson be ? 

God commanded Jonah to go to Nineveh. He 
straightway arose, and started for Tarshish. God 
told him to go one way, and he went another. 
When, however, shipwreck and ruin stared him in 
the face, a gleam of light shone out in his char- 
acter. Frankness, courage, and something that 
looks like disinterested benevolence, appeared in 
his confession and direction : " I know that for my 



GOUS WAY. 317 

sake this great tempest is upon you. Take me up, 
and cast me forth into the sea ; so shall the sea 
be calm unto you." When the generous-hearted 
sailors, after vainly striving to prevent so dreadful 
a fate, had reluctantly, and with many protests and 
prayers, sacrificed him, — one for many, — when 
the waters compassed him about, and he went 
down to the bottoms of the mountains, — his dor- 
mant faith awoke, and he remembered the Lord. 
With perverse ignorance, he had thought to escape 
from that Divine presence by going to Tarshish ; 
but when the earth with her bars was about him 
forever, he looked again toward the holy temple, 
— and looked not in vain. God graciously ac- 
cepted his repentance, and started him once more 
on his journey. 

Up and down the streets of Nineveh walks the 
prophet, tolling the death-knell of the city. " Yet 
forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.'* 
To that exceeding great city, full of silver and 
gold and pleasant furniture, full of gayety and 
wealth and fashion and splendor, that solemn 
voice must have come like the trump of the arch- 
angel. " Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be 
overthrown." All the beauty and glory shall be 
swept away. For all the merchandise of gold, 
and silver, and precious stones, and pearls, and 
purple, and silk, and scarlet, — for the voice of harp- 
ers and musicians, and of pipers and trumpeters, 
for the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride, 



318 GOUS WAY. 

for the maiden behind her lattice, and the little chil- 
dren playing in the streets, — there shall be the 
abomination of desolation. No wonder the stoutest 
heart quailed, and the boldest cheek blanched. 

But things took a turn upon which Jonah had 
not calculated. The people believed God. A 
national fast was proclaimed, and most sacredly 
and solemnly kept. From the king on the throne 
to the baby in the cradle, — yes, even to the horse 
in the stable, and the ox in his stall, — the nation 
clothed itself in sackcloth, and cried mightily unto 
God, and God heard their cry, and did not do the 
evil which he had threatened. 

What was the effect upon Jonah ? There came 
One after him, who wept over the approaching 
destruction of a great city. " O Jerusalem, Je- 
rusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest 
them which are sent unto thee, how often would I 
have gathered thy children together, as a hen gath- 
ereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would 
not ! " Nineveh had not stoned her prophet. 
She heeded his words, and humbled herself before 
his God. Yet he took it as a personal grievance 
that she was not to be destroyed. It was nothing 
to him that a whole population was not to be sudden- 
ly cut off from sweet life, — nothing to him that, 
where sin had abounded, grace should much more 
abound. 'His own reputation loomed up before him 
larger than the life of a million souls. His proph- 
ecy would not come true, and nothing was of any 



GOUS WAY. 319 

account compared with that. " Just as I said ! " 
exclaims Jonah. " I knew God was gracious, 
and kind, and merciful, and would not do what 
he threatened. That was why I went to Tar- 
shish. And now here I am, disgraced, and I 
might as well die as live." O bold, bad man! 
How dared he speak thus to the Most High God ? 
How could he speak thus to the most loving 
Saviour? How wrest even infinite tenderness 
into bitter and insolent reproach ? Why did not 
God smite him on the spot? But there is no 
thunderbolt, — only the gentle rebuke, " Doest 
thou well to be angry? " And Jonah, moody and 
sullen, takes up his station outside the city, to see 
if perhaps, after all, it may not be destroyed, and 
himself honored ; but even while sitting there, 
nursing his evil passions, the great God conde- 
scends to reason with him. A gourd springs up, 
sheltering him from the Southern sun, and his 
selfishness is exceeding glad. A blight destroys 
it, the sun beats upon his unprotected head once 
more, and he swings back again to the opposite 
extreme, and declares life not worth the living. 

"Doest thou weU to be angry for the gourd?" 
asks God, slow to anger. 

" I do well to be angry, even unto death," is 
the fierce and passionate reply. 

And then comes the application, — the lesson. 
" Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which 
thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow; 



320 GOD'S WAY. 

and sliOTild not I spare Xineveli, that great citr, 
wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons 
that cannot discern between their right hand and 
their left hand, and also much cattle ? " 

Ah ! Jonah, the lesson was not for you alone, 
but for heady, reckless, selfish, obstinate human 
nature everywhere. 

If God were as strict to mark iniquity as man, 
where should we appeal' ? T\"e often speak of His 
justice, but God's justice is better than man's 
mercy. Xot a sparrow falleth to the ground with- 
out his notice. The little dimpled arms of the 
KineAdte babies, stretching blindly out to him, 
took hold of his strength, and held back the blow. 
Nay, more than this, his loving kindness heard the 
bleating of the sheep, and the low of the uncon- 
scious kine, and for 

" The young lambs bleating in the meadows, 
The young birds chirping in the nest, 
The young fawns playing with the shadows, 
The yotmg flowers blooming toward the west," 

he repented him of the evil, and spared the city. 
In old time, a test question was, " Are you will- 
ing to be damned for the glory of God?" One 
rather inclines to ask some of our modern sons of 
thunder, " Are you willing that men should be saved 
for the glory of God ? " It is dilficult to believe 
that all will eventually be redeemed to holiness 
and happiness. So far as the Bible goes, if any 
one thing is therein clearly taught, both directly 



GOD'S WAY. 321 

and by implication, it seems to be that there is a 
limit to probation. But the more clearly this is 
seen to be a fact, the more terrible does it become ; 
and when I hear the tone which is sometimes 
adopted in speaking of, and with, those who hold 
opposite opinions, I wish to ask, " Are you willing^ 
my Orthodox brother, that the world should be 
saved? If, when you come to the gate of heav- 
en, you should find the sacred portals flung wide 
open to all, would you not feel a httle disappoint- 
ed ? Would your heart give one great bound of 
sudden and unlooked-for joy, or would your first 
thought be, " Well, well ! here is a pretty di- 
lemma ! Everybody pressing in, and what is to 
become of my arguments and positions ? " I sup- 
pose we are willing that men should go to heaven, 
but we wish them to go our way. So far as one 
may judge from appearances, if they will not go 
our way, some will not feel much satisfaction at 
seeino; them there at all. We should be more 
disconcerted at the sudden discomfiture of our 
system, than we should be rejoiced at the acces- 
sion of unlooked-for happiness. Jonah thought 
himself extremely orthodox. Armed with a special 
command, he felt quite secure in launching his de- 
nunciations right and left; and it did not in the 
least agree with his idea of the way things ought 
to be done, to have God strike in, and baffle all his 
calculations. 

Blessed be God that he does strike in. Jonahs 
u* u 



322 GOD'S WAY. 

maj fret and fume and pout and sulk, but he 
will do of his own good pleasure. They cannot 
hold him back from mercy, though that mercy dash 
their theories to pieces. They cannot monopolize 
truth, and force all purchasers to their stall. They 
cannot barricade heaven, and refuse admittance 
to all whose passports are not vised at their office. 
They may hew out turnpikes, and say to the Most 
High, " This is the way, walk ye in it"; but He 
that sitteth in the heavens is not confined by our 
boundary-lines. His path is in the great waters. 
His footsteps are not known. Are God's people 
willing in the day of his power ? 

O that men would praise the Lord for his g'ood- 
ness, and speak and practise his loving-kindness! 
As the mantle of Elijah fell upon Elisha, so may 
the mantle of God's charity fall upon. us, — mak- 
ing us more gentle, and considerate, and kind, and 
thoughtful, and loving, — that we may win back 
the wanderer, instead of driving him farther on 
in the by-ways of sin, — console the downcast, 
instead of adding to his despondency by harshness, 
— and in all things follow Him whose feet are 
beautiful upon the mountains, and whose messen- 
gers are anointed to preach good tidings unto the 
meek, to bind up the broken-hearted, to comfort 
all that mourn, to give unto them beauty for ashes, 
the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise 
for the spirit of heaviness. 



XL 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 




)E observed, not long since, a man 
endeavoring to drive a load of wood 
into a neighboring yard. The team 
consisted of a horse and a pair of 
oxen. The yard was up-hill, the load was heavj, 
the horse balky, and the man furious ; so, instead 
of " a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogeth- 
er," they gave each a separate jerk in his own 
direction. The man passed from passion to pro- 
fanity, the horse dashed right and left, the load 
grew palpably heavier, and the yard more and 
more up-hill. Meanwhile, the patient oxen were 
the chief sufferers. They pulled with all their 
might whenever they had a chance, but the wil- 
ful, selfish horse backed and twisted and pawed, 
and prevented their exertions ; and though all the 
drawing that was done was done by them, the long, 
fierce whip, in the hands of the enraged and indis- 
criminate driver, came down on the back of horse 



324 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 

and ox alike. It was a great pity. Tlie task was 
not intolerable. One strong, steady, continuous 
effort would have accomplished it ; but the selfish- 
ness of one member of the firm, and the injudi- 
ciousness of another, spoiled the whole. So the 
man shouted, and the whip cracked, and there 
was a great irritation, and the work was not done, 
after all. 

Then through the din and discord came softly 
steahng the sweet words of Paul : " Bear ye one 
another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." 

''Bear ye one another's burdens." The way is 
long, and a troop passes over it continually. There 
is no point where we cannot find lamentation and 
weeping and great mourning. There are weary 
feet, feeble knees, bending shoulders, achmg hearts. 
There are broken hopes, disappointed ambition, 
frustrated plans, mortified pride, wounded vanity, 
slighted love, delayed success, detected guilt, mis- 
placed confidence, shallow affection, loneHness, 
poverty, shame, desolation, disease, death. All 
these we can pass by with a sneer, with indifi'er- 
ence, or contempt, or disgust, and so make the 
burden heavier. It is in our power, if we will, or 
if we are not careful to will otherwise, to give an 
added bitterness to the cup that already overflows. 
We can stand still, and keep back the helping 
hand, the encouraging smile, the reassuring tone, 
and thus make up-hill work for the struggling saint 
or the returning sinner. We can go further, and. 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 325 

by wanton neglect or a perverse rejection of our 
own duties, add to those of our neighbor. The 
burden which of right belongs to us, we can throw 
upon our brother's shoulders, already overladen. 

But on the other hand lies a glorious possibil- 
ity. We can so walk that the road shall resound 
with songs and thanksgiving. We can strengthen 
the weak and confirm the feeble. We can offer 
sympathy to the sorrowful, balm to the wounded, 
comfort to the afSicted. We may draw back 
shuddering from the sin, but we can hold out help 
and hope to the sinner. If there is a palpable 
germ of good, we can develop it, and if there is 
not, we can dig for it. We can be on the watch 
to discover whose burden bears heavily, and bend 
our own necks to it. We can forbid the great 
question of our life to be, " How shall I get on 
best ? " and ask instead, " How can I best speed 
others on the way? " 

How might this valley of the shadow of death 
become the pleasant land of Beulah ! Our bur- 
dens would become light while we were striving 
to lighten others. The chilled traveller saved his 
own life in saving that of the perishing man, but 
his fellow-traveller passed on, and was punished. 
In the sorrows of others we forget our own. In 
helping others we help ourselves. By keeping 
our shoulders pertinaciously to our wheel, we shall ' 
not any more than get out of the mire, while, if we« 
give a lift, here and there, when our brother is 



326 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 

stuck fast, we shall get to the end just as soon, and 
have a pleasant journey besides. 

" The law of Christ." There are many points 
of doctrine hard to be understood. The Chris- 
tian religion has mysteries which even the angels 
desire to look into, and which we cannot fathom. 
Through all our life we shall grope in the outer 
courts of many a truth, contenting ourselves per- 
force with the substance of things hoped for, the 
evidence of things not seen. But this law of 
Christ is one which we can fully know and 
promptly do. Simple, definite, explicit, he who 
runs may read, and he who runs the fastest may 
read the best. We need never be at a loss 
whether or not we are the children of God." We 
need not be over-anxious lest our calling and elec- 
tion be not sure. The test is always at hand. The 
law came from Sinai with thunderings and light- 
nings and earthquakes ; but the law comes from 
Christ in a still, small voice, and love is its fulfil- 
ment. Its precept is, " Whatsoever ye would 
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." 
Judging ourselves by this rule, the best of us are 
none too good, and the most of us are intolerable 
— to our fellow-sinners ; — not intolerable to the 
long-suffering Father, not intolerable to the dear 
Redeemer, who knoweth our frame, who remem- 
bereth that we are dust, and so bears with us, and 
lets us live on, if perchance the earthly dust may 
one day " wear celestial glory." 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 327 

Christian brethren, of whatever name, or sect, 
or nation, this is the seal of your apostleship. 
This is the essence of your creed. Do you ful- 
fil the law of Christ by bearing one another's 
burdens ? 

When we look at what Christianity has done 
for the world, we thank God and take courage. 
"When we look at what has not been done, at what 
remains to be done, we are ready to lose heart, 
and cry out, " Who is sufficient for these things?" 
When we see the nations that have been reclaimed 
from idolatry to the living God, the temples that 
have been reared to his worship, the houses that 
have been opened for the fatherless and widow, 
the diseased in body and mind, the afflicted and 
distressed of whatever name and nation, — when 
we see the kindly spirit of that tender religion that 
seeketh not its own, springing up around us in 
deeds of charity and love, — we can almost beheve 
that our eyes have seen the salvation of the Lord 
But we turn the leaf, and another picture darkens 
before us. It is not that a great multitude do riot 
go up to the house of the Lord, but that greater 
multitudes press down to the chambers of death. 
The charities well up sweetly still, but they well 
up in a desert, and the breath of the Simoon 
sweeps over them, and burning sand lies heaped 
around them, hot, arid, life-forbidding. The 
leaven is so little, and the lump so great, that 
faith can scarcely look forward to the time when 



328 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 

the whole shall be leavened. It is eighteen hun- 
dred years since the song of peace on earth, good- 
will to men, rang down from the skies of Judaga, 
and yet the tired earth finds no peace. For eigh- 
teen hundred years the religion of Christ, which, 
whether true or false, is conceded to be the best 
religion ever revealed by God, or devised by man, 
has been preached and prayed and sung and lived, 
and yet it has hardly begun to take hold of the 
life of the world. Not to mention the tribes of 
men who have never heard the name of Christ, 
nor the nations to whom the story of his bfirth and 
life and death seem but an idle tale, nor those 
who have adopted it but to wrest it to the destrup- 
tion of judgment, reason, intellect, and manhood, 
we have but to look at our own country, state, 
town, church, heart, and we need not trouble our- 
selves about abstractions of total depravity, for we 
shall find on our hands more of the concrete arti- 
cle — total or otherwise — than we can readily 
manage. We are like a wide-reaching, thinly- 
settled country, over which a great army marches 
in victorious career. The old standards go down 
before it, and new ones are run up ; but after the 
army is passed, there is not very much difference. 
A new banner streams on the air, but matters in 
general go on very much as they did before. 

One of the points, and in truth the most com- 
mon one, in which we come short of the glory of 
God, and of the duty which Christ enjoms, is a 



THE LAW OF CHEIST. 329 

want of consideration for others. In a general 
way we doubtless desire to make other people 
happy, and to walk by the golden rule ; but we 
make a rather bungling performance of it. The 
trouble lies in our application of the theory. The 
Bible says, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
self"; we agree to it all, point out to our children 
the beautiful spirit of the Bible, and then go 
away, and do not love our neighbor as we do our- 
selves. We would not, perhaps, actually cheat 
him in a bargain, any more than we would cheat 
ourselves. We would not burn his house, any 
sooner than we would our own. We would 
make just as strenuous efforts to save his property 
if it were endangered. We do him a good turn 
when we can just as well as not, and even when 
it is positively inconvenient. But walking home 
from church with a vivid recollection of what you 
saw in the choir during the singing of the last 
hymn, you say, " What a bold, affected girl that 
Miss Smith is ! The effect of her fine contralto 
voice is quite spoiled by her airs during singing." 
You would be very much displeased to have Mr. 
Smith say so about your daughter. '' But," you 
answer, " if my daughter is affected, I expect peo- 
ple to say so, whether I like it or not. It might 
reach her ears, and cure her of her affectation. I 
would not go around decrying her to every one, 
but I consider it no harm to say to you what I 
think about her." >_ 



330 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 

Perhaps not. There is scarcely more than a 
show of amiahihty, and not even a show of reason, 
in the dogma that one must never speak of a per- 
son unless one can saj something good about him. 
It is quite right, and often edifying, to discuss 
people's faults and follies in the proper time and 
spirit, and with the proper persons. It resolves 
moral indistinctnesses, helps us to clearer views, 
shows us how such and such things appear to 
the eyes of our friends, and gives us thereby en- 
couragement and warning to guide our own con- 
duct; but m this very place there is great danger 
lest we do not leave a broad enough margin. We 
do not give elbow-room to modifying circumstan- 
ces and to contrary possibilities. We take a view 
from our own stand-point, and pronounce judg- 
ment as if there were no other. Miss Smith, so 
far from being bold or affected, is in truth timid 
to a fault. It is positive torture to her to stand in 
that quartette-choir, confronting the congregation. 
It is only by the most earnest appeals that she 
has been induced to do it. The very boldness 
and affectation which you notice is only her na- 
tive shyness, trying to hide itself, and overshooting 
the mark. 

A mother, observing that the fruit-dish was pre- 
maturely empty, said to her little daughter, " Why, 
Lizzy, what has become of all the apples ? Have 
you eaten them?" "No," answered Lizzy, "I 
haven't eaten one." Lizzy's mother had seen 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 831 

her eating more than one, and she was somewhat 
shocked at what she thought was Lizzy's false- 
hood ; but Lizzy persisted that she " had n't eaten 
one." After a great deal of questioning, it came 
out that Lizzy meant that there was one apple 
which she had not eaten, but her little stammer- 
ing tongue found a difficulty in conveying the 
idea. 

"I don't beheve Mrs. S. is very much of a 
lady," said one, of a new neighbor. " She was 
talldng so loud this morning, that I heard her 
plainly as I went by the house, till I got clear up 
to the corner." After Mrs. S. had been in town 
awhile, it transpired that her mother, who lived 
with her, was very deaf, and the loud words were 
probably addressed to her. 

A poor old woman who was never sensitive 
about her poverty, age, or ailments, used to cause 
much mirth in the minds of certain young people, 
because, though she pretended to be very lame 
from rheumatism, and seemed to walk with great 
difficulty when she first arose, yet, no sooner 
was she a few rods from the house, and partially 
out of sight, than she stepped off as sprightly as 
need be. The young people have now grown up 
into rheumatism themselves, and have ascertained 
from doleful experience that it was the nature of 
rheumatism, and not of " Aunt Harriet," which 
made her aged limbs stiff and unwieldy after long 
inaction, and gradually rcrcover suppleness by ex- 
ercise. 



332 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 

You hear of a woman lecturing, or otherwise 
breaking through the ordinary routine of her sex, 
and you wrap the robes of your womanhood more 
closely around you, and congratulate yourself on 
your feminine delicacy, reserve, and modesty 
(that perhaps could not lecture if it tried), aiid 
deprecate female ambition, and discontent with 
one's allotted sphere, and neglect of appropriate 
duties, — while, if you could look into the lecturer's 
heart, you would see very likely no dream of fame, 
but of flannel petticoats for her little ones,* peace 
and rest of mind for an invalid husband, plenty 
for an aged and infirm mother, help for a strug- 
gling brother, salvation for a beloved sister. You 
would see, perhaps, a delicacy and modesty as 
much greater than yours, as the intellect is strong- 
er; battling with want and discouragement and ad- 
verse fate ; neglecting no duty, but forced by the 
pressure of many ; sighing for no broader arena 
than the household hearth, on which, alas ! the 
fire burns dim and low ; rising at last, weak in- 
deed, but strong in the righteousness of its pur- 
pose ; conscious of being about to exile itself 
from the circle of sympathies in which it would 
delight to share, yet marching bravely to battle, 
thouo'h the most brilHant success must be defeat, 
— a martyr without the crown. O women ! 
when a woman goes out from among you, be 
sure there is a cause. Be sure that, whatever of 
* See Mrs. Southwortli's Autobiography. 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 833 

vanity or weakness there may be in her charac- 
ter, her womanhood is stronger than it all. Be 
sure she is drawn or driven by a power whose 
might you do not see, and cannot measure. Be 
sure there are lions in the way with which she 
has "grappled in a death-struggle, and by all the 
gentleness and tenderness and love of your own 
sheltered womanhood, by all your hope of future 
good for the little ones who cluster about your 
knee, and whose future paths you cannot trace 
nor know what Fate may have in store for them, 
deal gently, which is only justly, with these and 
such as these. 

" The crowd, they only see the crown, 
They only hear the hymn, 
They mark not that the choek is pale, 
And that the eye is dim." 

We go home from our shops and offices and 
fields comfortable and tidy and well-to-do. On 
our way we pass by our neighbor's house. The 
fences are down, and the clapboards hanging, the 
blinds broken, tlie panels loose, the paint worn 
dingy, the door-step fallen in, the garden over- 
grown with weeds, over-trampled by cows, over- 
rooted by pigs ; and we condemn, in no measured 
terms, the thriftless, shiftless, lazy owner, who 
hangs around the tavern and the grocery, while 
his health and house are going to ruin ; but we 
do not see the thriftless, fretful, complaining wife, 
whose whining voice, continued fault-finding, un- 



334 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 

washed floors, and ill-cooked food have -under- 
mined his strength, taken away all hope from his 
heart and all spring from his life. Or, we pour 
out the vials of our wrath upon her, knowing noth- 
ing of the invalid and half imbecile mother who 
gave her child all the mind she had, and wore out 
the remnant of her own weary life in a madhouse, 
leaving her daughter to the untender mercies of 
an ignorant, drunken father, without prop for her 
weakness, or culture for any strength she might 
possess. No, we know nothing of all this. We 
can know nothing of it. All we see is the sin, 
without the temptation ; the fault, without the 
palliation ; the weakness, without the cause ; the 
appearance, without the reality. We cannot tell 
the difference between simple preoccupation and 
haughtiness. A shrinking constitutional sensitive- 
ness may look precisely like vanity. Bashfulness 
masks itself under affectation. Misunderstanding 
blunders into apparent untruthfulness. Shyness 
protects itself behind the breastplate of pride. 
Deep emotion blinds our eyes with the flash and 
sparkle of levity. Life is a masquerade. Men 
and women come and go in dominos, sometimes 
of settled purpose, sometimes involuntarily, some- 
times unconsciously. 

Two inferences may be drawn ; one, that, ^ since 
we cannot know all the premises, we shall be 
guiltless, even if we do arrive at wrong conclu- 
sions ; the other, that, since we do not know all 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 835 

the premises, we should leave large margin for 
the unknown. Which of the two inferences we 
act upon will depend on whether our object is to 
justify ourselves or arrive at truth. 

The persons towards whom we most need to exer- 
cise considerateness, are those' with whom we come 
oftenest and most closely in contact ; while the 
tendency is the other way. We are tolerably 
polite and considerate towards those whom we 
see only occasionally; and too apt to be thought- 
less of the feelings, comfort, antecedents, and sur- 
roundings of those who sit by our own firesides. 

There is a class of persons in our land, who, if 
common report be true, have appropriated to them- 
selves an undue share of Adam's transgression. 
They not only fall into divers temptations una- 
wares, but " have a strange alacrity in sinking." 
Like poor Edmund Sparkler, if there is any pos- 
sibihty of a mistake's being made, they are sure 
to make it. They do not, like the rest of the 
world, occasionally do a foolish thing, but they 
never " deviate into sense." 

Editors of religious newspapers, city missiona- 
ries, evangelical preachers, and benevolent men 
generally, may be somewhat incredulous as to the 
existence of such a class ; but when I say that I 
refer to our Irish female servants, I am sure that 
American mistresses will rise en masse, and declare 
that, so far from exaggerating, the half has not 
been told. Cannot every housekeeper who reads 



336 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 

these words recall Bridgets and Ellens and Marys 
by the dozen, whose moral memories were exceed- 
ingly treacherous on the score of collars and stock- 
ings, who persisted in mopping the kitchen floor 
with the dish-towel, or spicing the apple pies with 
pepper, or plunging the knives into hot water? 
Any lingering remains of scepticism may be dis- 
sipated by observing with what fatal facihty the 
kitchen dynasties are overthrown, — the O'Fla- 
hertys, the O'Mulligans, and the O'Bradys strut- 
ting their little hour upon the stage, in brilliant 
and rapid succession, and then seen no more. 

The inefficiency of servants has been made the 
topic of female conversation till it has become 
proverbial, and no wonder. It is, perhaps, the 
greatest evil with which the American house- 
keeper has to contend. Nerves, temper, health 
itself, are worn out in the unceasing conflict with 
blundering heads and awkward hands ; and after 
Mrs. Jones has borne the burden and heat of the 
day, she is surely entitled to whatever crumb of 
comfort she can find in the fact that Mrs. Smith 
is fighting, inch by inch, in the same good cause. 
Mr. Jones may be somewhat tired of hearing the 
changes rung on this one theme, but it is a safety- 
valve which he will do well to think twice before 
closing, either by petulance or ridicule. 

To deny the existence or extent of the evil, is 
useless. That there is a great wrong, or a great 
many little wrongs, somewhere, is an obvious fact. 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 337 

To charge home these wrono;s to their authors 
would be, however, a difficult task. Many wo- 
men consider themselves innocent martyrs to 
Irish incapacity, and would be shocked at the 
slightest insinuation of blame on their own part. 
Nevertheless, in many cases, the mistress is more 
at fault than the servant. 

Under the old Jewish Theocracy, the rights of 
servants were recognized, their family membership 
acknowledged, and their comforts cared for. How 
much of this is true in our day ? We complain 
that our servants render us mere eye-service, but 
do we deserve any other ? Do we seek to estab- 
lish any other relation than that of employer and 
employed ? Do we remember that God hath 
made us of one blood, — that they are our broth- 
ers and sisters, influenced like ourselves by love 
and fear and hope, travelling with us to one judg- 
ment-seat, to be judged by one Lord, who was 
crucified alike for them and for us ? Do we re- 
member that by so much as we are superior to 
them in position, education, and character, by so 
much is their welfare in our care while our sj^here 
intersects theirs, — that we are just as truly, if not 
just as far, responsible for them as for our chil- 
dren ? We believe in the efficacy of prayer, yet 
many gather morning and evening in the pleas- 
ant parlor, and commend themselves, their wives, 
and their little ones to the care of the Heavenly 
Father, and pray for the prosperity of Zion and 

15 V 



338 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 

the coming of Christ's kingdom, while " the girl " 
plods on her wearisome way in the kitchen, be- 
yond hearing, perhaps beyond thought. I know 
that the priests are said sometimes to forbid at- 
tendance on family worship; but let us at least 
ascertain that this is the case with our own par- 
ticular servants, before we refuse or neglect to cast 
around them the shelter of our daily prayer. 

Again, do we on the Sabbath day remember the 
commandment. Thou shalt do no work, thou, nor 
thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant ? Do we 
so arrange their duties that they can attend church 
at least half the day ? We may believe that their 
faith is corrupt, but it is better than none. Not 
even a Romish priest so bars the doors of heaven 
that a humble, penitent soul cannot enter. Even if 
it were otherwise, we have no right to appropriate 
the time which God has given them for holy time. 
As far as in us lies, we should see that they keep 
the Sabbath holy, but at any rate we ought to be 
sure that they have a Sabbath to keep holy. 

We complain of the gregarious habits of our 
servants. We dole out the weekly or semiweekly 
leave of absence, and wonder they can be so in- 
considerate as to ask an occasional extra evening. 
We look suspiciously on their visitors, and some- 
times go so far as to forbid them to receive their 
friends. It is true that they often do have a 
remarkable number of dead relatives, whose fu- 
neral rites they are called on to perform, and 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 339 

of burly " cousins " with filthy pipes and a rich 
brogue, — nor is it agreeable to have a " wake " 
in the kitchen every night. If our kitchen- 
girls were only cooking-machines, patented by 
" Wheeler and Wilson," wholesale restrictions 
w^ould do very well. But as they are endowed 
with throbbing, yearning, hungry human hearts, 
the Gordian knot is not to be slashed in that way. 
Even people, with all the aid of books, music, 
games, family joys, and common interests, find 
an evening now and then hang heavily on their 
hands. How, then, can we condemn an ignorant 
girl, barren of mental resources, with small pleas- 
ure in the past, and small hope for the future, to a 
dreary, desolate solitude ? " The pity of it, lago, 
the pity of it." There is a golden mean between 
solitude and dissipation. A servant might give 
you the names and residences of half a dozen of 
her friends. If their character is good, let her 
receive their visits as often as their mistresses will 
allow them to come. She should understand, in 
this and in other matters, that you are acting for 
her interests as well as your own. This involves 
some trouble, to be sure, but it is in the end far 
less trouble to take the bull by the horns, than 
to be forever tossed on those horns. 

If we wish our children to be happy at home, 
we try to make home attractive. Does the same 
principle obtain with servants ? Do we ever 
think of making a home at all for them ? Is a 



340 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 

room made pleasant for their reception ? A few 
yards of straw matting, a few rolls of ninepenny 
paper, a cotton table-cover, one or two engrav- 
ings, a cheap vase, a whole looking-glass, a plain 
rocking-chair, a pair of white curtains, do not 
cost much, — the price of a fall bonnet will pay 
for them all, — yet what a change would they 
work in most "girls' rooms." When we complain 
that our servants loiter over their work, dragging 
through twelve hours what might as well be done 
in six, we should do well to consider whether 
we offer them any inducement to finish it earlier. 
Have they anything pleasant to look forward to, 
or must they simply sit down among the pots and 
kettles over which they have been working all 
day ? If they can read, do we take any pains to 
provide them with books or papers suited to their 
capacity, and thus incite them to despatch ? If 
they cannot read, do we encourage them to learn, 
or offer to teach them ? If their work is well 
done, do we notice it, or do we confine our super- 
intendence to reproving them when it is ill done ? 
Before we accuse them of want of neatness, 
have we furnished them with facilities for being 
neat ? If we should recommend with voice and 
water and towels and a temperate atmosphere 
daily or weekly baths ; if we should notice or sug- 
gest a becoming arrangement of the hair, or the 
improving effect of a collar ; if we should advise 
in the choice of a dress ; in short, if we should 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 341 

feel and show an interest in them as belonging to 
the same great family, I think we should be repaid 
a hundred fold. 

The subject is one of greater importance than 
we are apt to suppose. The Irish form no incon- 
siderable part of our population, and a very large 
majority of the house-servants of New England 
belong to this soundly-abused class. They are 
in our families, mingling more or less with our 
children. They have a mighty, though indirect 
and silent power. If we do not influence them 
for good, they will surely influence us for evil. 
Surely they can be made a blessing both to us 
and to tliemselves. That they are here in such 
numbers, is a fact not without significance. They 
have an open-heartedness which is fascinating, — 
strong affections which are proof against neglect 
and abuse, — vivacity, versatility, sprightliness, 
wit, humor, and a certain eloquence, a graphic 
power of language, which goes down to the depth 
of our hearts, bringing up laughter and tears. 
They are capable of noble deeds, of heroic lives ; 
but they come to us diamonds in the rough, with 
all their poverty, ignorance, and superstition cling- 
ing around them. Yet the Lord will surely re- 
quire them at our hand, in the day when he shall 
make up his jewels. 

Therefore should our lives be to them a con- 
stant gospel. Our superior education and refine- 
ment, and, more than all, our religion, should 



342 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 

bring forth fruit in forbearance, benevolence, 
kindness, gentleness, and love. 

Considerateness is indispensable, if the family 
wheels are to go smoothly. Without it there 
will be constant creaking. Yet a man will work 
all day, and come home and give all his money 
to his wife, and pride himself on her judgment 
in using it, and rejoice in her handsome dress 
and comfortable appointments, who will yet con- 
stantly annoy her by leaving a door open. A 
woman will devote herself to her husband with 
unwearied self-sacrifice in the way of consulting 
his tastes, keeping his clothes in order, tending 
him when he is sick, with a great deal more than 
the assiduity of a slave, and yet spoil everything, 
and throw him into a periodic fever, by having 
dinner ten or fifteen minutes late. It is on these 
little things that happiness hinges. Very few 
women run away from their husbands ; very few 
men poison their wives, — few, that is, compared 
with those that do not, though a good many have 
been trying their hand at it in these latter days. 
It is the little foxes that get together and gnaw 
and gnaw till the beautiful vine that went up so 
bravely to meet the sun lies an unsightly wreck. 
Even one little fox can do a great deal of mischief, 
if he only keeps at it. 

When a man and woman dwell in the same 
house, are called by the same name, and have 
the same interests, they seem to think that the 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 343 

laws of nature come to an end. Causes no longer 
produce effects, nor do effects flow from causes. 
Water will run up-hill, and chimneys will not 
smoke, though the flues be deranged, and corn 
will grow without being planted. They are no 
longer acquaintances and friends and human be- 
ings, with tastes that can be offended, and feelings 
that can be outraged, and sensitiveness that must 
be respected, and whims that are to be managed. 
They are a moral anomaly. They are lovers, 
and love is a self-made and self-perpetuating affair, 
with which they have nothing to do except to 
draw on it for every occasion. So, while the nov- 
elty lasts, and their oneness is something pretty 
to look at, and dehghtful to think of, and inex- 
pressibly sweet in its freshness, tlkey are thoughtful 
and polite ; but when that is well over, and the 
real wear and tear comes, and they need all the 
love they can possibly marshal to keep life from 
degenerating into "What shall we eat, what shall 
we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed ? " 
then they become careless about the small, sweet 
courtesies, let all the little pores through which 
love should filter be stopped up, and, passing 
through the valley of Baca, there are no wells. 

It has sometimes seemed to me that, after all, 
there is not very much love between husbands and 
wives. I suppose that remark will be received 
with a howl of execration, ajjd I hurry to compro- 
mise and conciliate by saying that undoubtedly 



344 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 

there is a great deal, only it lies below the surface. 
I am quite sure, however, that if men and women 
showed to each other no more attention and ten- 
derness and interest before marriage than some 
of them do after, they would not have been mar- 
ried at all. Before marriage, it would be cold- 
ness, and would result in separation ; afterwards, 
it is dormant love, and all right. Man is not, 
however, generally supposed to be a hibernating 
animal, and the ingenuous mind detects an incon- 
sistency. As his hunger and thirst, his relish for 
books and business and society and honors and 
money, remain in active operation, it is difficult to 
see why his love should go into winter-quarters. 

Women are less at fault in this matter than men. 
Their love doet not generally become torpid so 
soon as that of men, and when it does, it is more 
easily awakened. This is attributable partly to 
nature, and partly to circumstance, as well as to 
some other things. '^Men are more selfish than 
women.^ The sphere in which they move has a 
tendency to make them so. The woman forgets 
herself in the little lives around her. She is occu- 
pied with the care of those who, but for her care, 
would die. She is in the midst of ignorant, inno- 
cent, unthinking little souls, who .take no thought 
not only for the morrow, but for the to-day. They 
know nothing, and care nothing, about their own 
welfare ; and the mother's heart embraces them 
all, and lives in them all. The man is surrounded 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 345 

by men, strong, active, eager, keen, — all looking 
out for Number One. He must look out for 
Number One also, or Number One will not be 
looked out for. Other people have their hands 
full with their own interests. So he contracts a 
habit of making self prominent. It is true that 
wife and children are comprised in that self, but 
often in a latent way. If misfortune or disgrace 
meet him, the thought of wife and child makes 
it tenfold bitter; but ordinarily, as he occupies 
himself with his business from day to day, these 
home thoughts do not suo-o-est themselves. He 
would probably be just as diligent in business, just 
as anxious to succeed, even if there were no home 
circle dependent on him. 

Therefore, when he comes home at night, the 
day's habit comes with him. He will be likely to 
forget the changed atmosphere, and will go on 
looking out for the comfort, as he has been all day 
looking out for the interest, of Number One. If 
he remembers the change, he will remember it in 
the way of reflecting that he has been hard at 
work all day for his family, and now he wishes to 
be waited upon and to take his ease. He expects 
to be harried in his business, and lays out for it ; 
but when he gets home, he desires peace and 
quiet, and to have everything suit him. He con- 
siders himself the Sir Oracle of the concern, and 
when he opes his mouth, he does not want any 
little dogs to bark in opposition. 

15* 



343 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 

This is tlie way lie has a tendency to look at it, 
nor does it necessarily imply that he is totally de- 
praved ; yet there is another side. 

In point of real trial to temper, nerves, and 
patience, there is no comparison to be made be- 
tween a woman's duties and a man's. As I sit, I 
hear the click of a shoemaker's hammer. From 
mornino; till night it seems never at rest. The 
shoemaker leads a laborious life, but how steadfast 
and calm ! He drives the peg, and he knows it 
will go in. He made so many shoes yesterday, he 
will make so many to-day. At just such a time 
he will go home to dinner, with just such an amount 
of work accomplished. But his wife, busy in her 
kitchen, has a baby who is governed by no laws, 
and upsets all her calculations. If he sleeps 
through the morning, she will spring through her 
washing and ironing and boiling and baking ; but 
if he awakes, as he probably will at the most crit- 
ical moment, everything has to give way. It is of 
no use to plan, for a chubby fist knocks down all 
her arrangements. Her baby is the most despotic 
of all tyrants ; he has not the slightest regard for 
public opinion. It is of no manner of importance 
to him whether the fire goes out, and the room 
is swept, or not. If he wishes to be rocked, 
he must be, regardless of consequences. Then 
very likely there are three or four more little ones 
who must be washed and dressed and fed, besides 
having dress and food prepared for them. If they 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 347 

are all in the soundest health, they need constant 
watchfulness ; for children are unlike pegs. They 
will not go where they belong. They are constant- 
ly making little lunges right and left, and getting 
into mischief. Pluck them out of the sugar-firkin, 
and they tumble straightway into the molasses-jug. 
If there is a cistern on the premises, they will be 
sure to plunge in sooner or later ; and if there is 
no cistern, it shall go hard but they will find 
a tub of water, somewhere, large enough to sit 
down in. Scissors and knives — everything that 
has an edge to it — draw them as if they were 
made of steel. A perverse prompting moves them 
to pound everything that can be hurt by pounding, 
and scratch and cut and tear according to the re- 
spective sensibilities of the object. So it goes, 
even when they are well ; but when, besides this, 
we think of the great army of measles, and scarlet- 
fever, and chicken-pox, and mumps, and colic, and 
cholera infantum, and inoculation, and teething, 
that lie in wait. for the young immortal and his 
mother, the prospect is appalling; for the brunt 
of it all comes on the mother. What is true of the 
shoemaker and his wife is true of the blacksmith 
and his wife, and the tailor and his wife. I know 
that there are occupations which are more complex, 
and demand the exercise of all the powers. But 
the m-erchant and the lawyer, however absorbing 
and perplexing may be their avocations, have to 
do with grown-up people. Tlie merchant's clerka 



348 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 

are often quite as gentlemanlike and well educated 
as himself. His brother merchants are acute and 
self-involved, but reasonable. The lawyer's client 
may be ignorant and stubborn, but he is an ac- 
countable being, and swayed by a homely, but 
powerful logic ; but the wife is the mistress of ser- 
vants inexperienced, even when well disposed, and 
the mother of terrible infants. Let a man try 
to work with such tools, and such encumbrances, 
and see how he succeeds. 

It is true that a man's responsibilities are, in one 
sense, greater. If he makes a misstep, he brings 
down with him partner, clerks, wife, and children, 
sometimes shaking even church and society; while 
the woman may let this, that, and the other duty 
slip, and the sky does not fall. But on the other 
hand, it is the greatness of the matter at stake 
which supports the man, and its littleness that 
disheartens the woman. She has the same round 

— perpetually changing, yet perpetually the same 

— of little cares and duties, which cannot be dis- 
j)ensed wdth, yet which never seem to amount to 
anything. It is all very well to cajole her with 
" fashioning the young mind," and " training the 
hand that is to guide the world," and " modelling 
the greatness of the next age," but it is a long 
w^ay to the next age, and when the future states- 
man comes crying to his mother with Spalding's 
Prepared Glue cleaving to his face and hair and 
clean apron, and his fingers bleeding from the cuts 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 349 

of the broken bottle, it is difficult to perceive that 

" The spirit that there lies sleeping now 
May rise like a giant, and make men bow, 
As to one heaven-chosen amongst his peers/' 

How, then, can a man who professes to be a 
Christian come home- from his office, or shop, or 
field, to his nervous, hurried, anxious, care-worn 
wife, and harshly or coldly ask why dinner is n't 
ready, or what in the world she lets those children 
make such a noise for ? Women are often exhort- 
ed to meet their husbands with a smile ; but what 
manner of value has a smile on the lips, if there 
be not a smile at the heart ; and what manner of 
man is he who wishes his wife to crush back all 
her tears into her own bosom, and put on a mask 
for him? Is marriage to be a keeping up of ap- 
pearances ? Can love be retained only by a mas- 
querade ? Is a husband something that must be 
daintily fed, and gingerly managed, from whoni 
the thorns must be hidden, and for whom the roses 
must 'blow, and, if they will not blow, wax flowers 
must be manufactured ? Surely not. At the ba- 
sis of true marriage is truth. It is life, and not 
dilettanteism, that glows on the household hearth. 
If a man has manhood, he wants his wife just as 
she is, — whims, sorrows, vexations, and all. He 
does not want to be deceived by a papier-mach^ 
image, gotten up for the occasion. If things have 
gone smoothly, and she meets him with a smile, it 
is very charming. But if Johnny is threatened 



350 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 

with croup, and the baby is cross, and Bridget has 
given notice of leaving next day, he is not selfish 
enough to expect her to forget all this, or to wish 
her to gloss it over and deceive him by pretending 
to be happy when she is not. There are many 
times when it will be better for him, and better for 
her, that be should open his arms and let her have 
" a good cry," and even if he is a little sentimental 
and babyish, it will not cause any permanent harm. 
This will soothe and calm her irritated nerves, and 
they will talk it over, and so love will bridge the 
chasm, and tunnel the mountain, and chain the 
lions ; for the heart that loveth is not only willing, 
but able. And the wifely tenderness will be made 
so strong and grateful, that when the husband 
comes home next day, in his turn irritated, de- 
pressed, and savage, as "real good" husbands can 
be, she will not heed his moodiness and surliness, 
but will knead bun, and mould him, and make him 
over, so deftly that he will not know he has been 
touched, till he finds himself sitting clothed and 
in his rip'ht mind. 

Waiting in a milliner's shop the other day, I no- 
ticed a nice little woman standing before one of 
the counters, and a nice little baby, two or three 
years old, perched upon it in front. The eager 
mother was trying on, first one, and then another, 
of the little pink and blue and white marvels of 
hats, unable to decide which set off her darling's 
blue eyes and fat cheeks best. It was a very pret- 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 351 

ty sight. Her whole heart was in the work just 
as much as General Scott's is in his, and the air 
with which she would pick out the broad bows, 
and give the hat a little pull and knock, and then 
stand off to get the effect, bespoke an indescribable 
self-satisfaction, or rather baby-satisfaction, — and 
there, through all the pretty panorama of motherly 
love of baby, and womanly love of bonnets, stood 
her tall husband, looking as cross as could be. 
Presently she held up one of the hats before him, 
and said, half deprecatingly, '' It 's three and a 
half!" And the moody fellow only answered, 
" Get what you 're a mind to, /don't care ! " and 
put his hands in his pockets, and sauntered to the 
door. 

If that man a year oi* two before his marriage 
had been allowed to go into the same shop with 
that woman, how different would have been his 
demeanor ! How ignorantly interested he would 
have been in every detail, how sweetly silly in his 
suggestions, how slavishly acquiescent in hers ! 
'' I don't care," indeed ! A refusal graciously 
and Christianjy given might have carried more 
happiness than this surly permission. 

A short time after, I happened to hear another 
of the exemplary little wives with whom the 
country is full say to her husband, " Charley, had 
I better wear my rubbers ? " And the man had 
the depravity to look up from his newspaper and 
growl, '' You know what the weather is, and you 



35^ THE LAW OF CHRIST. 

know what kind of shoes you Ve got. What is 
the use of asking me ? " But such a question be- 
fore marriage would not have been referred back 
in that way. It is reasonable to conjecture that 
his reply would have expressed some fond, but en- 
tirely unnecessary alarm, supplemented by his own 
drawing on of the rubbers with a half playful, 
half tender remark about "the little feet," — if 
he did not descend into the lower depth of " foot- 
sey tootsey." I remember the dark eyes, the 
shining, abundant curls, the pure complexion, the 
graceful figure, the sprightly fancy, the vivacity 
and wit and kindness and generosity, — the count- 
less charms and virtues of a brilliant and beautiful 
girl. She married a man of ability, education, 
wealth, and position. Shortly after her marriage, 
— only a little while, — a time that could scarcely 
be measured by years, — a gentleman who had 
known her in her glad maidenhood visited her ; 
and as he came out from the stately house, with all 
its luxurious appurtenances, he sighed gloomily to 
himself : 

" They 've made her a grave too cold and damp 
For a soul so warm and true." 

It is not poverty, or riches, or ease, or hardship, 
or health, or sickness, that makes women sad or 
glad. 

It is neither desirable nor difficult to multiply 
examples. I only mention these because they are 
additional illustrations of the statement that men. 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 353 

a very large proportion of men, are much less care- 
ful to please their wives than they were to please 
their sweethearts ; and also because I have one 
more remark to make on the same subject. The 
remark is exclusively for men. No woman need 
read this article any further. If men are not 
guilty, what I shall say will do them no hurt. If 
they are guilty, I do not suppose it will do them 
much good ; but there are some things that will 
not rest till they are said. 

The remark is this : Leaving out of view all 
question of rehgion, or chivalry, or decency, and 
looking from the lowest stand-point, it remains a 
fact that love, as well as honesty, is the best pol- 
icy. If men were wise, they would see that 
the surest way to gain even their selfish ends is 
kindness. If a man's object is his own, and not 
his wife's happiness, the best way to get it is to do 
just what he would do if his wife's happiness were 
the object. In this case, as in many, perhaps in 
all others, utter selfishness and utter benevolence 
are at- one in the means they employ. That is, 
the thing which will do the most good, on the 
whole, to others, will do the most good to one's 
self. A wife will keep her husband's house, and 
train his children, if he is indifferent, or thought- 
less, or unkind ; she will perhaps love him too, 
for women have a way of worshipping the temple 
where their idol dwelt, long after the idol has ^ 
fallen, face downward, on the threshold, — an 

' w 



354 THE LAW OF CHRIST.. 

unfortunate habit, I cannot help thinking, for if a 
man feels that his wife will love him whether or 
no, he will naturally be less careful to make him- 
self lovely. If he could be brought to under- 
stand that his wife's affection depends upon his 
behavior, and that, w^hen he falls away from grace, 
she will fall away from love, he would take more 
pains to be agreeable. But, as I was saying, 
such love and service are not the love and ser- 
vice which love and consideration will bring out. 
Do not men know that to a woman love is a 
despot ? For her love's sake there are no paths 
so crooked that she will not make them straight, 
— no places so rough that she will not make them 
plain, — no heights she will not level, no tides she 
will not stem, no perils she will not brave. In 
her love she is strong, wise, brave, patient, untir- 
incr, ingenious, — I had almost said, invincible. 
Nor are women, as a general thing, exacting. 
They do not demand constant or foolish petting. 
Only let a woman be sure that she is precious to 
her husband, — not useful, not valuable, not con- 
venient simply, but lovely and beloved ; let her be 
the recipient of his polite and hearty attentions ; 
let her feel that her care and love are noticed and 
appreciated and returned ; let her opinion be 
asked, her approval sought, and her judgment re- 
spected in matters of which she is cognizant ; in 
short, let her only be loved, honored, and cher- 
ished, in fulfilment of the marriage vow, and she 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 355 

will be to her husband and her children and to 
society a well-spring of pleasure. She will bear 
pain and toil and anxiety, for her husband's love 
is to her a tower and a fortress. Shielded and 
sheltered therein, adversity will have lost its sting. 
She may suffer, but sympathy will dull the edge 
of her sorrow. A house with love in it — and by 
love I mean love expressed in words and looks and 
deeds, for I have not one spark of faith in the love 
that never crops out — is to a house without love 
as a person to a machine. The one is life, the 
other is mechanism. The unloved woman may 
have bread just as light, a house just as tidy, as the 
other, but the latter has a spring about her, a joy- 
ousness, an aggressive and penetrating and pervad- 
ing brightness, to which the former is a stranger. 
The deep happiness at her heart shines out in her 
face. She is a ray of sunlight in the house. She 
gleams all over it. It is airy and gay and graceful 
and warm and welcoming with her presence. She 
is full of devices and plots and sweet surprises for 
her husband and her family. She has never done 
with the romance and poetry of life. She is her- 
self a lyric poem, setting herself to all pure and 
gracious melodies. Humble household ways and 
duties have for her a golden significance. The 
prize makes the calling high, and the end dignifies 
the means. Her home is a paradise, not sinless, 
nor painless, but still a paradise ; for " love is 
heaven, and heaven is love." 



356 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 

Why will men not see the priceless jewel that 
can be their sure possessing ? How can a man be 
willing to bind to himself a body of death, — to 
walk through the dreary years with a heavy- 
hearted, duty-bound, care-burdened, disappointed 
woman, to whom life has become a monotonous 
round of uninteresting necessities, when, by a time- 
ly though tfiilness, a little attention, a little love 
lovingly expressed, he might secure the constant, 
healing, beautiful ministrations of 

" a spirit, bright 

With something of an angel light " ? 

It is madness to let slip away a love so rich in 
blessing, so easily retained, so capable of bound- 
less broadening and deepening and strengthen- 
ing, — yet men continually do it. Reaching 
out after wealth, they grasp pebbles, and trample 
under their feet the " mountain of light." Look- 
ing for ease, they push aside the downy couch, and 
lay their cheeks upon a pillow set with thorns. 
Unutterably blind, they will not see the angel that 
folds its white wings by their fireside, and with in- 
sane presumption they brush roughly against their 
heavenly visitant, or with equally insane indiffer- 
ence turn coldly away from it, till the pure robes are 
defiled, the white wings droop, and the sad angel 
fades away forever. O the phantoms of dead joys 
that flit through unhaunted houses ! O the hopes 
that lie buried under still lighted hearthstones ! O 
the murdered possibilities strewn thick along the 



THE LAW OF CHRIST. 357 

ways, over the lowlands and the uplands of life, — ■ 
stark corses to which no Messiah shall ever saj, 
*' Arise ! " Through all the land you shall scarce- 
ly find a house in which there is not one dead. 
There is no speech nor language ; their voice is 
not heard ; but the shore is sorrowful with the 
wreck of brave barques ; the sea is dark with 
ships that started proudly, — every banner stream- 
ing from the mast-head, every sail spread to catch 
the smallest gale, — but that lie now dismantled 
and becalmed in the dead sea of Sargossa, or float 
listlessly down the unreckoning tide, or rush wildly 
over the rocks to swift destruction. 





XII. 
PRAYING. 

^RAYING is one of those things abont 
which it seems useless to argue. Noth- 
incf is easier than to make out a case 
against its necessity, or benefit, or rea- 
sonableness. Any one can say that, if God indeed 
arranged matters before the foundation of the 
world, he will not be turned aside by the wishes 
of people who very often do not know what 
it is that they wish, and who consequently make 
the most unreasonable requests ; and any one can 
answer back, that in this original arrangement 
allowance might have been made for praying, 
— that our prayers may be as truly a part of 
the gearing of the universe as events, and that 
consequently, so far from being useless, they are 
essential. But this is not the strong point. It is 
enough to say, and to know, that God has com- 
manded it. Though we should see no resulting 
good, we should submit to, and have faith in, a 



PRAYING. 359 

" Thus saitli tlie Lord." Furthermore, we all, 
whether we do or do not believe that prayer ef- 
fects any outward results, do implicitly believe 
that its reflex influence is beneficial. We know 
that the state of mind and heart which sincere 
prayer produces, is favorable to love and hope 
and faith and humility and benevolence, and all 
virtue. It cannot be supposed that God would 
lure us to prayer by false pretences, — hold out 
answer to prayer as the main inducement to 
prayer, — while in fact the prayer has no bear- 
ing whatever on the object prayed for; that we 
should have it or not, just the same, whether we 
did or did not pray for it, and although we do 
derive benefit from it, it is an entirely different 
benefit from the one held out to us. The idea is 
monstrous. It is an insult to the purity and in- 
tegrity of the Deity. How could He who forbids 
us to do evil that good may come, do it himself? 
Would it be consonant to his character to lead us 
to the performance of a duty by a falsehood, while 
the truth, if known, would make the duty absurd ? 
If any one thing is plainly taught in the Bible, 
it is that prayer will be answered. Nor is the 
argument less strong, even if we reject the in- 
spiration of the Bible. So long as we admit that 
prayer has a beneficent reflex influence, we are 
constrained to admit that human nature is so con- 
structed that an act which is a continual and stu- 
pendous absurdity is a continual and stupendous 



360 PRAYING. 

refiner, strengtliener, purifier, — which is of itself 
as great an absurdity, to say the least, as any faith 
in answer to prayer. The Bible and our own 
inner life harmonize in inculcating the duty of 
prayer. 

Secondly, there is a wide diversity of opinion as 
to the things we should pray for. Many think 
that spiritual good is the only legitimate object of 
prayer. Others admit the actual, physical needs 
of life, sustenance, and shelter, but are rather 
shocked at the idea of asking for pleasures, or 
going into particulars of any kind ; but neither the 
precepts nor example of the Bible, nor the nature 
of God nor of prayer, justify this. God is as infi- 
nite in small matters as he is in great. It is a false 
and assumed dignity which despises the little things 
of life. True dignity can be sportive without be- 
ing frivolous. We think the sparrows in our fields 
and the hairs in our heads to be very small mat- 
ters, quite too insignificant to occupy the time and 
attention of Him who made the heavens and the 
earth ; yet He numbers the one, and notices the 
other, nor for that do the worlds \\jheel any the 
less grandly down their appointed paths, nor is the 
music of the spheres jarred by one clang of discord. 
In a deeper and truer sense than the old Pagan 
knew, God in a thousand ways declares, " I think 
nothing human to be foreign to me." Therefore 
let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, that 
we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in 



PRAYING. 361 

time of need, — whether the need be of the heart, 
or head, or arm, or purse. 

Yet I have observed that, when we pray for some 
special temporal object, God often seems to answer 
the prayer in the letter, but not in the spirit. For 
instance, you pray that you may succeed in busi- 
ness and amass wealth, and you do; but your heart 
becomes hardened thereby, and your business is a 
millstone about your neck. You have set your 
heart on your boy's getting through college with 
the highest honors, and he does, but broken in 
health, and fit only for an untimely grave. You 
pray for strength and opportunity to accomplish 
a certain journey, and they are given you, but 
it turns out that the journey would better never 
have been made. If God Vv^ere man, we should 
say we were overreached. He keeps his word in 
the letter, but breaks it in the spirit. We wish to 
make the journey, but it is for a certain purpose. 
God gives us the journey which we ask for, but de- 
feats the purpose which we assume that he knows. 
But God is divinely upright, and there must be 
something behind what we see. I infer that God, 
seeing things as we do not see them, answers our 
prayers sometimes by giving us not what we ask 
for, but what is best for us, — which we all admit 
is a complete fulfilment of the compact, — and 
sometimes by giving us the very things we ask for, 
to our own immediate disadvantage or discomht- 
ure, in order to show us that we would better leave 

16 



362 PRAYING, 

these things to liim. "What is best for us in a tem- 
j)oral point of view, we do not know, and therefore 
I think he would rather have us lean on him, and 
trust in him, not setting our hearts on this, that, 
and the other thing ; and though, in our weariness 
and heaviness and heart-soreness, he is not dis- 
pleased that we cry out sorrowfully to him, " If it 
be possible, let this cup pass from me," yet he will 
fold us more tenderly in the arms of his loving- 
kindness if we meekly add, " Nevertheless, not 
as I will, but as thou wilt." 

Praying is a duty, because God has commanded 
it. More than tliis, it is a privilege, because God 
has permitted it. Sometimes, by too long looking 
at the duty, we forget the privilege. It is better 
to do a right thing because we are forced to do it, 
than not to do it at all; but better still is it to do 
it because we hke it. The law was our school- 
master, but in the Gospel 

" Joy is duty, and love is law." 

We have our stated seasons for prayer, and then 
we stop. Morning and evening we bow the knee 
before God, and the thing is done. We feel happy 
because our duty is performed, and it ^8, and the 
resultant happiness is natural and right. But 
prayer means a great deal more than this. There 
are no set hours during which the Lord holds 
court, and hears cases. His ear is always atten- 
tive. His hand is ever ready. His mercies are 



PRAYING. 363 

not only new every morning and fresh every 
evening, but noon and night overflow with them. 
Hour calls unto hour to bear witness to the 
goodness of the Lord in the land of the living ; 
and ' 

" Hourly as new mercies fall, 
Let hourly thanks arise." 

We need to cultivate a praying spirit. We 
want the morning orison and the evening thanks- 
giving, but we want more. The communication 
between heaven and earth should be always open. 
Prayer should be a state as well as an act. It 
should be natural, spontaneous, involuntary. It 
should be 

" The Christian's vital breath, 
The Christian's native air." 

It is well to have a time specially appropriated to 
prayer; but if that is all, the supply cannot answer 
the demand. After your morning prayer, you 
feel strengthened, refreshed, at peace with God 
and man, — ready for life's work ; but it will not 
last. Virtue cannot be bottled up and kept on 
hand ready for future emergencies. The fibre lasts, 
but the pungency disappears. By the time you 
want to use it, it is good for nothing. Prayer in 
the morning is good for just what it is worth, : — 
that is, it begins the day well ; but it needs to be 
continually renewed. You pray in the morning 
for patience to meet all the trials of the day ; and 
the little boy suggested to his father that he should 



364 PRAYING. 

save time by saying grace over the pork-barrel. 
One is about as sensible as the other, — both good 
as far as they go, but God gives us grace by piece- 
meal. He enjoins us to pray without ceasing. 
We ouo-ht to be in so constant communication with 
him, that whenever a slight trial comes, whether 
of faith, or patience, or love, and whenever a little 
blessing flutters its white wings softly over our 
heads, we shall immediately, naturally, without 
preamble, or circumlocution, or hesitation, or stop- 
page, lift up our hearts to God. Thus only can 
we obtain all things which God prepares for us. 
He has opened for us the fountain of the water 
of life. If we draw only at intervals, even 
though they be regular, we shall often walk 
athirst. We should keep the little rills always 
trickling thence into our hearts, that so there 
shall be in us a well of water springing up into 
everlasting life. 

God might have made us differently, but he did 
not. He might have made our bodies so that one 
whiflp of fresh air in the bemnnincr should sustain us 
through life, or w^e might have taken oxygen as 
we do food, three times a day ; and he might have 
formed our hearts and minds so that a daily, or 
w^eekly, or yearly recourse to him should be all- 
sufficient for our wants ; but he chose to make us 
so that we need to lean on his arm continually, 
and it is because, when we go out into the fore- 
front of the battle, where we most need it, we 



PRAYING. 365 

thrust aside that sustaining arm, that we so often 
faint and fall. "After my prayers, my mind 
seems touched with humility and love ; but the 
impression decays so soon ! " said one of the 
Church's holy ones. One should form the habit 
of prayer, that all good impressions may be per- 
manent. 

I see in sundry religious writings a kind of talk 
which is to me entirely incomprehensible. Good 
and pious men lament their coldness and want of 
interest in prayer, — their inability to commune 
with God. They say that they pray with their 
lips, and their hearts will not pray. They seek 
God and do not find him. They have no sense 
of his presence. They call themselves dead, and 
hard, and insensible, and their praying gives them 
no relief. These people, too, are sometimes the 
great ones of the earth, giants in intellect, saints 
of whom the world is not worthy ; and it may 
seem presumptuous in a humbler individual to sit 
in judgment upon them. Yet a healthy infant is 
as good a judge of some things as a dyspeptic phi- 
losopher, and I venture to say that this state of 
heart and mind is morbid. I do not believe that 
a healthy mand — one that has never been over- 
laid, or undermined, or interjected with cant — 
one that has been left to its own natural workino;s 
and the Spirit of God — one that has drawn its 
inspiration and instruction from the Bible, and not 
from the traditions of men — would ever fall into 



B66 PRAYING. 

anjr such miserable condition. Just apply com- 
mon sense to it, for' prayer is a common-sense 
thing, just as much as eating and drinking. What 
■is prayer? Request, thanksgiving, confession of 
sins, expression of repentance, and love and adora- 
tion of God. Is prayer anything else than this ? 
But I see here no opportunity for coldness, or 
deadness. It would seem to be the very simplest 
thinp; in the world. You have done something 
Avrong, and you wish you had not, and you deter- 
mine te do so no more. Why not go to God and 
say so ? You have had a pleasant day ; every- 
thing has gone well. Why not thank God for it, 
just as naturally as you thank the friend who 
sends you the first pansy from his garden ? You 
see the young Spring standing by the water- 
courses, and breathing over the meadows, and 
your soul is filled with admiration of God's great- 
ness, and love of his goodness, and that is prayer. 
Where are the deadness, and hardness, and insen- 
sibility, and all those villanous frames of mind to 
come in ? If one goes to God in a straightforward 
way, I cannot conceive what there is to make an 
ado about. God has emphatically and repeatedly 
declared that if we seek him he will be found of 
us, and I believe it. I believe it just as he said 
it, — without quirk or quibble. But if we go 
seeking frames of mind instead of him, we shall 
likely enough find neither what we seek nor what 
we do not. " I have not enjoyed communion wdth 



PRAYING. 367 

God," says a man whose memoir has perhaps 
been more extensively circulated than any other, 
" or else there would not be such strangeness 
in my heart towards the world to come." But 
how can our hearts ever be anything but strange 
towards the world to come? We have never 
been there. We never saw any one that had 
been there. We have no reason to suppose that 
we have ever been in a world very much like 
it. God has told us very little about it, and what 
he has told us only makes it the more strange. 
He has expressly tried to satisfy us for our slender 
knowledge, by promising that what we know not 
now, we shall know hereafter. Of all things in 
the universe with which we might be expected 
to be familiar, the next world is the last ; and here 
is a good man inferring that he cannot have had 
communion with God, because his heart feels 
strange towards this unseen and vaguely-described 
world. 

But why should the fact of our communion 
with God depend upon any such inference, or 
any inference at all ? You know whether you 
are talking with your friend or not. You do 
not need any results to enlighten you as to the 
fact. If he is over sea, you are uncertain, because 
he may be beyond your reach. Even while you 
are writing, he " may sleep full many a fathom 
deep"; but the God we worship in very deed 
dwells with men forever. He is not talking, or 



368 PRAYING. 

pursuing, or in a journey, or peradventure sleep- 
eth and must be awaked, before he can hear 
us. He sees us while we are yet a great way 
off, and has compassion upon us, and comes out 
to meet us. 

It is true that we do not always feel alike about 
praying. Sometimes the heart overflows. We 
see in some special way how God has crowmed our 
year with his goodness, and made our paths drop 
fatness ; or we catch a sudden glimpse of some 
hidden sin, and are appalled ; or w^e covet ear- 
nestly some good gift, and the tongue is loosened. 
The heart burns w^ith love, and the eyes grow^ dim 
with happy tears. The soul must pour itself out 
before God, and would fain dwell in his presence 
forever. At other times we are not moved to 
special emotion. We know that we love God, 
and we are grateful in a general way, but we have 
not a vivid sense of anything in particular. This 
may be the result of sin, but not necessarily. 
The fondest husband in the w^orld is not always 
meditating on his wife's perfections, nor admiring 
her gentle grace. He is away from her a great 
part of the day. He is not thinking of her all the 
time when he is with her, and when he is think- 
ing of her, he is not ahvays thinking of her sweet 
eyes and her dear face ; but he loves her straight 
through, and she knows it, and is content. . 

It is evident that, w^hen this is the case, we canr 
not pray as we should when the case is different. 



PRAYING. 369 

The moutli may speak abundantly out of the 
abundance of the heart ; but when, for any reason, 
it is weak, languid, or listless, the mouth should 
not multiply words. The idea that a prayer must 
be of any set length in order to be acceptable, 
is preposterous. Be not deceived. God is not 
mocked. Not the length, but the depth, of a 
prayer is the measure of its efficacy. Be sincere. 
Be in earnest. Be natural in your prayers as in 
your life. If .one has nothing in particular to say, 
it is not necessary to wrap himself in generalities, 
for the sake of i&lling up the time. God wants 
no such lip-service. Not to such prayers are his 
eyes open and his ears attent. We may indeed 
continue all night in prayer to God, and his ear 
does not wax heavy. But if our burdened hearts 
can only send up the passionate cry, " Lord, have 
mercy on me a sinner ! " we shall go down to our 
house just as truly justified, nay, if we do but 
touch the hem of his garment, we shall be made 
whole. 

I once read of a young negro's being overheard, 
at his private devotions, to count out his gratitude 
on this wise : " O Lord, me tank de for food and 
raiment, for victuals and clothing, but not for de 
sboe-buckles, for me bought dem wid me own 
money." Such a. prayer would doubtless be 
heard, and such gratitude accepted by the Lord ; 
for the one was earnest, and the other sincere. 
Though the premises and the conclusion may 

16* X 



370 PRAYING. 

have been wrong, the reasoning was correct. If 
the Lord really did not help him to the shoe- 
buckles, there certainly was no occasion for 
thanks in that direction ; and in this one respect 
his prayer furnishes an example for all. It was 
discriminating. It meant something, and he 
knew what. There was no vague, indefinite 
thanksgiving for equally vague and indefinite 
blessings ; no proper, well-ordered words, that 
meant everything in general and nothing in par- 
ticular. The negro boy wished to have a distinct 
understanding on the subject. He was entirely 
willing to give unto God the things that were 
God's ; but he wished to have Cassar's things 
rendered unto C^sar quite as scrupulously, nor 
did his justice to himself in the least imply nig- 
gardliness towards God. We can adopt his wis- 
dom without adopting his theology. 

We render gratitude to God for his mercies, 
which are " new every morning, and fresh every 
evening." When we enter upon the duty of 
thanksgiving, we thank him in a general way 
for many things. If pressed to make out a list 
of what it is for which we are thankful, we might 
answer glibly, " health and plenty, peace and 
prosperity." But do we know what these are ? 
Do we know what national disease and famine 
and war and adversity are ? If we really are 
grateful to God for health, shall we turn away 
from his temples, and immediately proceed to de- 



. .J 



PRAYING. 371 

stroj it by over-work, over-play, over-eating, or 
over-anxiety ? If we indeed thank him for plenty, 
shall we shut our hearts to the cry of the poor and 
needy, which comes to us from near and far, the 
cry of those who lack bread for the body or the 
soul ? Shall we show how highly we value peace, 
by sitting at ease around our comfortable fires, 
while the right struggles without in the grasp of 
strong and vigilant foes ? Shall we set up pros- 
perity to be our god, sacrificing to it our noblest 
principles, our sacred honor ? Shall we not rather 
invest our talents ? Shall we not prove our wor- 
thiness to receive a blessing by the use we make, 
and the care we take, of those already given. It 
is the good and faithful servant, who has been 
faithful over few things, that shall be made ruler 
over many things. 

In our enumeration of our special blessings, the 
gleam of shoe-buckles is very apt to discover itself. 
Our plenty and peace and prosperity are the 
result of our own industry and prudence and 
wisdom. It is our own hand that has gotten us 
the victory. We attribute some remote first cause 
to the Lord, but we take the lion's share of the 
credit to ourselves. We look abroad upon our 
vast possessions, the mighty fabric of empire 
which has sprung up in a night, and exultantly 
say, — "Is not this great Babylon, that I have 
built, by the might of my power, and for the 
honor of my majesty?" But whence came the 



372 PRAYING. 

skill that planned, and tlie arm that wrought? 
Who set the rock in its place ? Who formed 
the mountains, and hollowed out the sea ? Who 
sunk the iron in its bed, and planted the forests 
where they grow ? Who pierced the coasts, and 
poured the rivers from his hand? Nay, who 
keeps the air in perpetual equipoise, — just so 
much of this ingredient, just so much of that? 
A little less density, a little less heat, a little 
less moisture, and all life would be suddenly 
extinct. 

The shoe-buckles may have been bought with 
our own money, but the coin has the Divine 
image and superscription ; therefore it should be 
rendered unto God as one of the things that are 
his. 

In praying for blessings, our innermost sincerity 
should be tested. We pray for greater light ; do 
we make the most of the light we already have ? 
We pray for opportunities to do good ; do we 
improve the opportunities that constantly present 
themselves ? We pray for our daily bread ; are 
we doing our utmost to earn it ? We pray for 
peace; do we follow the things that make for 
peace ? We pray that Christ's kingdom may 
come ; are we straining every nerve to bring 
it ? What folly — to call it by no harsher name 
— is it to implore God to add still further to a 
blessing of which we already possess more than 
we use ! To ask him to help us while we are 



PRAYING. 873 

not doing all we can to help ourselves ! To ask 
him to allay discords which we are careless in 
fomenting ! To ask him to purify our hearts, and 
then let evil spirits come in and riot there ! In 
short, to ask him to do the work which belongs 
to ourselves, or to give gifts of which we have 
already shown ourselves unappreciative and un- 
worthy ! 

No ! Let us not on the one side weary the Lord 
with our words ; and let us not on the other side 
dishonor him with slavish fear. He is the Lord 
God strong and mighty ; he is also the Lord 
God merciful and gracious. He is a jealous 
God ; but he is our dearest friend. Eye hath 
not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered 
into the heart of man, such love as that wherewith 
God loves us ; and he behaves towards us as if 
he loved us. He not only once sent his Son to 
die for the world because he loved it, but he con- 
tinually watches over it for the same reason. He 
wants men to pray to him because he loves them. 
He does not drag them by violence into his pres- 
ence, thrust them down upon their knees, com- 
mand them to pray, to feel, to adore, to have such 
and such emotions on peril of his wrath. He opens 
his arms to them. " Come, my children, you are 
weak and weary. The way before you is long. 
Come, rest with me awhile, and get strength. 
Come for a little peace and patience and joy. 
I have enough of everything you need. I can 



374 PRAYING. 

give you all you want. ' Come unto me, all ye 
that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give 
you rest.' " And suppose we do come after a 
hard day's work, exhausted, void of emotion, al- 
most of desire, will God be angry if we only 
whisper a good-night prayer ? Is a mother an- 
gry with her baby who falls asleep in her arms 
in the middle of her lullaby? And does not 
God who made us know our frame, and remem- 
ber that we are dust ? And if he is not strict 
to mark our iniquities, will he be strict to mark 
our weaknesses ? Oh ! let us be simple and sin- 
cere. Prayer should not be made a complicated, 
uncertain, difficult, and elaborate thing. It is too 
precious, too dehghtful, too heart-healing, to be 
turned into a bugbear. 

Old or young, happy or wretched, strong or 
weak, draw nigh unto God, and he will draw nigh 
unto you. Never mind good people's diaries. 
Come boldly unto the throne of grace, and find 
grace to help. Hear his loving-kindness : " Fear 
thou not, for I am with thee ; be not dismayed, 
for I am thy God : I will strengthen thee ; yea, I 
will help thee. And the Lord thy God will hold 
thy right hand, saying unto thee. Fear not ; I will 
help thee. When the poor and needy seek water, 
and there is none, and their tongue faileth for 
thu'st, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of 
Israel will not forsake them." 



XIII. 



FORGIVENESS. 




HARLES SUMNER, a man who 
makes the name of Senator illustrious ; 
who has been truer to the Republic 
than she ha^been to herself, inasmuch 
as, while she has sometimes faltered in the way, 
suffering herself to be overborne by wicked coun- 
sels to her own misdoing, he has known no waver- 
ing in his allegiance, but has always been " true 
to truth and brave for truth"; who, free from 
the vulgar ambition of place, is fired with the no- 
ble ambition of power, but of power based only on 
what is excellent in himself, and bearing only on 
what is excellent in others ; who has approved the 
majesty of right as well as the calm steadfastness 
of genius, by returning, after years of enforced 
absence, to the battle-ground, and taking up the 
sword on the same spot where rage and cowardice 
and wounded iniquity had wrested it from his 
grasp ; who, deserving well of the Repubhc for 



376 FORGIVENESS. 

services faithfully rendered, and sufferings heroi- 
cally borne, deserves not less for this, that he has 
brought down into the arena of politics the culture 
of the scholar, the courtesy of the gentleman, and 
the catholicity of the Christian, demonstrating 
thereby that a nation's work needs not to be done 
with unwashen hands, but that the most devoted 
patriotism may consist with the widest learning, 
the truest refinement, and the purest morality, — 
Charles Sumner, referring, in a recent speech be- 
fore a popular assembly, to the aggressions of the 
slave power upon the rights of man, said : *' For- 
giving those who trespass against us, I know not 
if we should forgive those who trespass against 
others. Forgiving those*who trespass against us, 
I know not if we should forgive those who trespass 
against the Hepublic. Forgiving those who tres- 
pass against us, I know not if we should forgive 
those who trespass against God." 

The duty of forgiveness is inculcated in the 
Bible with no more distinctness than is the fact 
asserted that certain conditions must precede it. 
This part we are very apt to forget in theory, and 
though it will hardly be conceded that men in gen- 
eral are too ready to forgive injuries, and therefore 
need to have the conditions clearly defined, yet all 
theoretical flaws produce more or less mischief 
in practice. The particular harm occasioned by 
this oversight is, that a certain indiscriminate and 
wholesale forgiveness is enjoined, against which 



FORGIVENESS. 377 

healthy minds revolt ; the result is that they, with 
equal indiscrimination, reject the whole. Conse- 
quently, to many, forgiveness is synonymous with 
meanness and cowardice. It is attributed either 
to a want of spirit enough to feel an insult, or of 
courage enough to resent it ; undoubtedly, a good 
deal of what passes for forgiveness and amiability 
is only this ; but this is not forgiveness any more 
than the hide of the rhinoceros, or the horns of the 
deer, are forgiveness ; and by as much as forgive- 
ness is a noble, manly, and Christian virtue, by 
so much should its character be understood and 
rescued from the imputation of bemg milk and 
water. 

When the sun goes down behind the hills to- 
night, the listening ears of angels, and the always 
open ear of Christ, will hear thousands and thou- 
sands of sweet child- voices hsping, " Forgive us 
our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass 
against us," and as the little night-gowned babies 
kneel by mothers' knees, and rest in mothers' 
arms, and smile in happy sleep, it will seem as if 
no being ever could be so cruel as to trespass 
against their innocence, and that even the pure 
eye of the Son of God, looking into those little 
hearts, will scarcely find any trespass there ; but 
when the white-robed cherubs get up in the morn- 
ing, the angelhood ebbs, and humanity sets in 
strong. They are no longer a choir of shining 
ones, but a troop of Johnnys and Susys and 



378 FORGIVENESS. 

Franks, who do not like to be washed, and see no 
beauty in smooth hair, and have a special aversion 
to old frocks when new ones are hangino; in the 
closet, and a special knack at setting each other by 
the ears whenever opportunity does or does not 
offer. Consequently, the differences that arise are 
numberless, and armed interference on the part of 
parents becomes a continually recurring necessity. 
Here the matter begins. In the nursery the bat- 
tles of life are fought, the perplexities of life are 
encountered, the drama of life is enacted. Here 
the great moral principles that should guide and 
narmonize life are brought into play and strength- 
ened for future use, or (alas ! too often) stretched 
and strained and ruined. Here the theory of for- 
giveness in all its ramifications needs to be thor- 
oughly understood and correctly applied, or incal- 
culable confusion will arise in a thousand forming 
minds. Mary will not pull Willie's hair if her 
mother bids her not, though it seems to her that 
(t would be no more than strict poetic justice in 
return for his pulling hers ; nor will the verse 
that she is made to repeat about rendering evil for 
evil, make all the crooked places straight before 
fler. Harry cannot see why grown-up men put 
mto jail those who rob them of their property, 
while he is expected to forgive and forget Bob's 
running away with his ball. Nor do we, his father 
and mother, see quite clearly through the whole 
subject ourselves. An injury has been done or 



FORGIVENESS. 379 

attempted against us. We feel that we must for- 
give, because it is riglit and Scriptural and Chris- 
tian to do so ; yet we cannot feel towards the 
offender just as we did before, because it is not 
natural or possible to feel so ; and we compromise 
between ought and zs, and say, " We will forgive, 
but we never can forget." 

But look into this matter a little. We want 
no compromise with wrong or right. If anything 
is right, do it wholly, — if wrong, do it not at all. 
At all events let us know where we are. If it is 
not possible to forgive and forget, it is not our 
duty to do it ; for God never did and never will 
require us to do what it is not possible for us 
to do. Ability is the limit of duty. If it is our 
duty to do it, we can do it, and we must do it, 
and — we will do it ! 

The New Testament draws a parallel between 
man's forgiveness of his brother, and God's for- 
giveness of man. If ye forgive not men their 
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your 
trespasses. Even as Christ forgave you, so also 
do ye. There must, therefore, be a similarity be- 
tween the two acts. How, then, does God forgive 
us ? The Bible furnishes plenty of answers. 

" If my people, which are called by my name, 
shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my 
face, and turn from their wicked ways : then will 
I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and 
will heal their land." 



380 FORGIVENESS. 

" It may be that the house of Judah will hear 
all the evil which I purpose to do unto them ; that 
they may return every man from his evil way; 
that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin." 

" Take heed to yourselves. If thy brother 
trespass against thee, rebuke him ; and if he re- 
pent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee 
seven times in a day, and seven times a day turn 
again to thee, saying, I repent ; thou shalt forgive 
him." 

This is the point : repentance must precede for- 
giveness. God does not forgive wicked men till 
they humble themselves, and seek his face, and 
turn from their wicked ways ; and we may be sure 
he does not require us to do differently, for his 
ways are equal. He does not even leave us to 
infer this. He says directly, " If thy brother tres- 
pass " — what ? ""^ Rebuke Jdmy And then adds : 
"J/* he repent, forgive him." This is unneces- 
sary, if we are to forgive him whether he repent 
or not. If a man wilfully or wantonly injure us, 
by word or deed, in mind, body, or estate, we are 
in no wdse bound to treat him, or to feel towards 
him, as we should if he had not injured us. We 
are not only not bound to do so, but we are bound 
not to do so. It is, generally, not possible, and if 
it were possible, it is not desirable. We shame 
the dignity of right, when we allow right to be 
sinned against with impunity. We encourage 
evil-doing when we receive the evil-doer with 



FORGIVENESS. 881 

open arms. We set a premium on slander when 
we welcome the slanderer to our hearths and 
hearts. Until he repents and brings forth fruits 
of confession and retraction, meet for repentance, 
■v\ie ought to stand aloof from him, — holding our- 
selves too high and pure for a friendship with 
anything unclean. Is not this the doctrine of 
the Bible? 

Here comes in a danger on the other side. We 
are to stand aloof, but for the right's sake, not for 
the sake of malice, or revenge, or pride. We 
may- feel and say, " I am better than thou," but 
not in a Pharisaical spirit. We see that the act is 
mean, and we despise it, and we cannot help re- 
joicing, and it is right that we should rejoice, in 
the consciousness that we are above doing it ; yet 
he who is versed in the lore of human hearts will 
hardly indulge greatly in such self-gratulation. 
He knows how often freedom from special sin may 
be owing to freedom from special temptation, and 
his feeling will be less of exultation than of active 
gratitude to God, who has kept him from the hor- 
rible pit and miry clay. Though we cannot look 
upon the sin but with abhorrence, nor receive the 
sinner without protest, we should be scrupulously 
careful not to let the injury rankle and fester in 
our souls. A wound is terribly hard to heal when 
the proud flesh gets into it. We cannot look upon 
our offending brother with the love of compla- 
cency, but we can and ought to cherish the love 



382 FORGIVENESS. 

of benevolence. We can pity him, for sin and 
crime are the worst calamities that can befall a 
man. We can pray for him, that his eyes may be 
opened, — not simply to see his sin against us, but 
to see his sin. We can watch for opportunities ^ 
do him good, if so be he may be shamed into 
repentance ; and when the opportunity comes, we 
can improve it. Here, again, we have God for 
an example. This is the attitude in which the 
Bible represents him, — "a God ready to pardon, 
gracious and merciful," "good and ready to for- 
give, and plenteous in mercy unto all them that 
call upon him." Everywhere He stands waiting, 
longing to forgive, watching the first symptoms of 
repentance, seeing the returning sinner when he is 
yet a great way oflP, going out to meet him, and 
not only receiving him as a son, but feasting him 
as an honored guest, and dearly beloved. Is this 
our attitude ? This is what it should be. For 
the right's sake we should be unswerving, but for 
the sinner's sake, for our own soul's sake, for 
Christ's sake, we should not be punctilious. When 
repentance comes, we should forgive freely, fully, 
entirely, — like God, who abundantly pardons. 
Let us have no half-way measures, for so shall 
we be verily guilty concerning our brother. The 
word " forget " need give no trouble. We are to 
forget as God forgets when he says, " I will for- 
give their iniquity, and I will remember their sin 
no more." It is not an absolute, intellectual for- 



FORGIVENESS. 383 

getfulness, for that is not a part of his nature. 
Nor can it mean so to us, for we are made in the 
image of God. Even if absolute intellectual for- 
giveness is ever possible to us, it does not come 
within the scope of our will. We cannot for- 
get because we are willing to forget, nor because 
we wish to forget. The very effort would only 
fix the fact more firmly in our minds and mem- 
ories. Alas ! alas ! how many know this too sadly 
well ! How gladly, if we could, would we erase 
the little memories from our hearts ! How happy, 
if, " in the silent hour of inward thought," no 
remembered sin, long long ago committed and 
repented of, no folly, no weakness, no shame, no 
pain, should rise from a long-forgotten grave 
to haunt, perhaps to reproach I But memory is 
the avenger of conscience, and no repentance can 
stay her hand. Not even the abounding love of 
Christ can wrest the sting from this worse than 
death, — the victory from these relentless graves. 
Christ may be glorified thereby, and we rejoice in 
that ; but we must be forever abased. Man and 
God may forgive, but the soul is its own sternest 
janitor, and cannot forget. 

The forgetfulness wherewith God forgets the 
sins of his repentant children is of the heart, not 
of the head. It is such foro-etfulness as the mothei 
bestows upon the little one who weeps out hii 
sorrow on her bosom. Remembering the act, she 
remembers it without a vestige of anger or dis- 



384 FORGIVENESS. 

pleasure. Slie remembers it only to help more 
generously and to love more deeply. So should 
we forgive and forget the trespasses of those who 
trespass against us. 

Looking at it in this light, forgiveness is no pas- 
sive, negative stolidity, the despicable birthright 
of ignoble souls, but an active, positive, and most 
Godlike duty, demanding for its accomplishment 
the exercise of man's noblest qualities, — those 
that separate him from the beast, and make him 
but little lower than the angels, — nay, rather, that 
place him higher than the angels, — allying man 
to Him who is above all principality, and power, 
and might, and dominion, and every name that is 
named, not only in this world, but in that which 
is to come. 

Looking at it thus, the bravest boy may not fear 
lest his reputation suffer by its exercise. So far 
from indicating a mean spirit, it presupposes a 
spirit not only manly, but, since it is in the image 
of God, divine. A mean spirit may feel an insult, 
a grovelling spirit may resent it, but only a lofty 
spirit can forgive. 

Looking at it in this light, we shall not find it 
hard to conduct ourselves justly, as well as Chris- 
tianly, towards those who have trespassed against 
others, or against the Republic, or against God. 
Rio-htly esteeming the blow struck at the least of 
Christ's little ones to be a blow struck at our- 
selves, — rightly feeling those injuries most sensi- 



FORGIVENESS. 885 

bly wliicli do not affect our own persons, — I'igl^tly 
shuddering through every nerve when the Repub- 
lic is endangered by treacherous friends, and the 
hurt of the Church is shghtly healed, — we will 
not be implacable when God forgives. When 
those men, North or South, who have sinned 
against human rights ; who have sought to place 
chains upon the necks of freemen, or who have 
not sought to remove the chains from the necks 
of the enslaved ; who, in the pursuit of their un- 
righteous ends, have desolated homes, destroyed 
life, and publicly perverted justice ; who have 
trampled upon the Constitution that would not 
be wrested to their evil purposes ; who have 
counted the blood that was shed for freedom of 
little worth ; who have sinned most deeply in this, 
that they have sought to poison the fountains of 
virtue ; who have wrought ill to the Republic 
most in this, that they- have not assaulted her 
from without, but have laid hold of her strength 
within, — pouring into her veins the turbid flow 
of vile self-seeking, instead of the vigorous pulse 
of universal right, hastening her on thereby to 
premature senility and decay ; who have even 
gone into the sanctuary, and laid unholy hands 
upon the ark of the c^ tenant, making the word 
of God of none eflPect by their traditions ; who 
have uncovered the nakedness of the land that 
gave them birth, causing her name to become a 
by-word, a reproach, and a hissing among the 
17 T 



386 FORGIVENESS. 

nations ; — when even these shall bethink them- 
selves, and repent, and make supplication unto the 
Lord, sajing, " We have sinned, and have done 
perversely, we have committed wickedness " ; and 
so return unto the Lord with all their heart, and 
with all their soul, then will we too, remember- 
ing the plague of our own hearts, join our voices 
with theirs to the Lord God of Israel, crying, 
" Hear thou their prayer and their supplication 
in heaven thy dwelhng-place, and maintain their 
cause, and forgive thy people that have sinned 
against thee, and all their transgressions where- 
in they have transgressed against thee ; for they 
be thy people." 

Thus, in all times of our adversity and in all 
times of our prosperity, in the hour of death and 
in the day of judgment, shall we be able to say 
without rebuke, " Forgive us our trespasses, as 
we forgive those who trespass against us." 




XIV. 



ERROR. 




,T is no matter what a man believes, pro- 
vided he is sincere in his behef, — is 
a somewhat common affirmation. It 
comes chiefly from those who seem to 
think that liberahty consists in having no boun- 
dary hnes, that there is no such thing as religious 
truth, and that, though convictions must be toler- 
ated among the masses on account of the shallow- 
ness of their minds, and the narrowness of their 
views, yet the true condition of the highest hu- 
manity is a vast and barren negation ; or it comes 
frqm those who are too indifferent or indolent to 
search among the foundations of faith, and, either 
too blind to recognize, or too disingenuous to con- 
fess such indifference and indolence, endeavor to 
satisfy and excuse themselves by believing that the 
object is insignificant and the pursuit unworthy ; 
or from men of warm hearts, and acute, but not 
large observation, who see in every sect benevo- 



388 ERROR. 

lent, virtuous, and Christian Individuals, and who 
can in no other way reconcile discrepancies of 
faith and uniformity of practice. 

" No matter what a man believes, if he is only 
sincere ! " rejoin those whose business and pleas- 
ure it is to contend earnestly for the faith once 
delivered to the saints. "But if a man is awa- 
kened at night by the cry that his house is on fire, 
and refuses to rise and flee because he believes the 
alarm to be false, will his belief save him from the 
flames ? Will he not just as surely perish as if he 
did not so believe ? A man eats poison thinking 
it to be food, but shall he not surely die ? His 
belief is sincere, but it does not save him from 
death." 

And this is called refutation. The error is sup- 
posed to be disproved, — shown to be absurd. 

This is not refutation, — not a sound, thorough, 
logical, satisfactory refutation. The cases are not 
parallel. If the cases are parallel, and it is a 
refutation, the matter stands thus : As the death 
of the body inevitably results from a wrong belief 
in the one case, so the death of the soul inevitably 
results from a wrong belief in the other case. 
It follows that every Universalist and Unitarian 
and Koman Catholic will be forever lost ; for they 
believe to be false certain statements which we 
hold to be fundamental truths. It follows also, 
that every pagan, every idiot, every baby, from 
simple lack of belief in the Gospel, whether he 



ERROR. 389 

has ever heard of the Gospel or not, whether he 
has abihty to understand its conditions and meet 
its requirements or not, will be lost, — as the un- 
conscious invalid or the sleeping child would be 
lost in the burning house. In fact, the illustra- 
tion is of the most superficial kind. On the face 
of it, for a moment, it may appear to be accurate, 
but it does not stand the test of the slightest ex- 
amination. It leaves the real difficulty untouched, 
and it assumes what is not true, and so creates a 
new difficulty, and is an obscuration rather than 
an illustration. It assumes that moral law is like 
physical law. Doubtless, in the eyes of God, 
moral law is just as exactly defined, its causes and 
effects are just as accurately determined, its logical 
connections are just as rigorously established, as 
are those of material law ; but not to our eyes. 
We are not wise overmuch in material law. We 
know cause and effect to but a limited extent. A 
thousand modifications come in between our data 
and our conclusions, and greatly affect the result. 
But moral law, so far as it falls within our scope, 
does not pretend to anything like the accuracy of 
material law. Motives, inducements, temptations, 
education, — a thousand circumstances of which 
one mind only is cognizant, — are to be taken 
into the account. In material law result is ev- 
erything ; motive nothing. A man may burn his 
house or poison his friend from carelessness or 
mistaken love,*but the house burns and the friend 



390 ERROR. 

dies as surely as if malice had directed the deed. 
In the moral world, the result is of less account 
than the motive, or rather the direct and apparent 
result is not the real and final result. The actor, 
not the act, is the important point. God did not 
forbid Adam to eat the apple because he wished 
to save the apple, but because he wished to try 
Adam. Jordan had no medicinal virtue above 
Abana and Pharpar. 

The reason of this is evident. If moral law 
were rigidly defined, if the details of our faith and 
practice were verbally laid down, if God had 
made us so that we could guide our lives with 
mathematical accuracy, we should have been little 
better than machines. There would "have been 
no margin for individual endeavor, no elbow- 
room for love. It seems as if the Bible was 
made with set purpose to give full sway to our 
faith and forbearance, our zeal and trust and 
candor. God could have revealed every article 
of belief to us with such clearness, that we could 
no more doubt than we doubt that two and two 
make four, — that fire and strychnine are fatal 
to life. It would have been just as easy for him 
to reveal everything beyond question, as to re- 
veal it as he has. His revelation is such that 
scores of sects have sprung up, each taking the 
Bible as its basis, and each understanding it differ- 
ently. One thinks baptism by immersion is the 
only real baptism, and one tliinlfs sprinkling is 



ERROR. 391 

equally Scriptural. One sees universal salvation 
taught there, and one the final sorrow of the 
impenitent. One finds God in Christ, and one 
finds him only in the Father. No one of these 
sects can be pronounced to be without real and 
earnest Christians in its bosom. And did not God 
purposely leave his golden truths somewhat under- 
ground, that, by the eagerness and assiduity with 
which we dig for them, and by the courtesy and 
kindness which we show to others engaged in the 
same pursuit, we may at once develop a healthy, 
vigorous, and refined spiritual life, and prove how 
highly we prize these manifestations of his will ? 
If we care to take only such truth as lies on the 
surface, if we do not care to seek the hidden 
things of God, our love cannot be very warm, 
our devotion not very hearty. If at every turn in 
life God stood by us, pointing out, '* This is the 
way, walk ye in it," we could give only a simple 
obedience ; but if our eagerness to reach him is 
strong enough to make us pause and ponder, ex- 
amine the different roads, take observations, bridge 
ravines, and cut down the underbrush, we have 
opportunity to show the strength of our attach- 
ment and the depth of our desire. 

Bearing in mind still that, if the illustration in 
question be pertinent, it follows that the point 
believed is all-important, and the sincerity of be- 
lief, and its causes, conditions, and other circum- 
stances, of no account whatever, it is worth while 



392 ERROR. 

to look at our own practice in such cases of moral 
judgment as fall within our jurisdiction. 

John Brown undoubtedly believed that he was 
doing a just, and right, and humane thing when 
he disturbed the peace of the country. But he 
suffered the penalty in spite of his belief. So far 
the example applies. But though the law does 
not, the world does, accept his belief in extenua- 
tion of his guilt. He died a felon's death, and but 
for his behef would have been a felon. Civil 
law doomed him to the gallows ; moral law has 
crowned him forever with the Avreath of martyr- 
dom. Now God governs us by moral, not by 
civil law. Civil law is the endeavor of very de- 
ficient, very imperfect, and very sinful beings to 
do the best they can, — to compass justice as far 
as possible. It is very bulky and cumbrous. It 
takes cognizance only of coarse and palpable trans- 
gressions. It is hedged about by rules. It is a 
creature of statutes and precedents. It only ap- 
proximates justice. By complicated machinery, 
by close and elaborate reasoning, by circuitous 
and involved processes, it only succeeds in beat- 
ing back the great waves of depravity. It just 
manages to prevent anarchy and maintain society. 
But moral law is the instrument and the pre- 
rogative of Omnipotence. It is delicate, direct, 
penetrating, instantaneous, infallible. It has no 
statutes of limitation. It is self-adjusting, self- 
executing. It does not, like civil law, stop short 



ERROR. 893 

at the life. It pierces into the soul. It discerns 
the thoughts and intents of the heart. It gives to 
every circumstance its just weight. It permeates 
everywhere. It embraces everything. It is ade- 
quate, exact, perfect. 

We may not know the sentence of Divine Jus- 
tice upon that brave old man whose deeds and 
death ring in a thousand songs, but is there in the 
whole Christian Church one who believes that his 
soul went to God burdened with the guilt of mur- 
der and insurrection ? Yet if sincerity of belief 
and the circumstances which induced it are of no 
account, his acts were murder and rebellion. 

There are thousands at the South who believe 
that they are engaged in a war of right against 
wrong, of liberty against slavery, of independence 
against servility. They are really engaged in 
treason. If the sincerity of a man's belief has no 
effect upon a man's character and fate, then every 
Secessionist is individually guilty of the most ter- 
rible crime which a citizen and the most heinous 
sin which a man can commit. There is not in the 
rebel ranks one Christian. All their prayer is 
mockery. All their virtue is hypocrisy. Every 
man is a wretch. Every woman is a monster. 
Do we believe this ? We believe nothing of the 
sort. We believe that there are good and true 
men and women among our bitter foes. They 
have been misled by wicked men. They have 
been deceived by false statements. They have 

17 # 



394 ERROR. 

been blinded from their youth. They cherish a 
false faith. But beneath all the integuments of 
falsehood, we discern the royal humanity. Nay, 
even the civil law, awkward, unwieldy, and clumsy 
as it is, takes cognizance of these facts, and when 
the rank and file lay down their arms they will 
find mercy, because they did it ignorantly through 
unbelief. 

So the civil law permits a man to go free who has 
killed his neighbor, if it be shown that he supposed 
himself to be doing it in self-defence, even though 
in reality he were not attacked. Military law 
does not condemn a sentinel who shoots one of his 
own men under the supposition that he is a rebel 
and a spy. If civil and miUtary law, which must, 
from the nature of things, be full of imperfection, 
and must especially be able to inform themselves 
but very inadequately regarding the modifying 
circumstances, — if they allow themselves to be 
influenced by these, is i-t reasonable to suppose 
that the moral law, administered by a Lawgiver 
and Judge who has made the law absolutely per- 
fect, and who knows thoroughly what is in the 
heart of man, who judges not by the faltering ac- 
count which we are able to frame and render, but 
by the accurate knowledge which he possesses of 
every thought and motive and purpose, more ac- 
curate than that of our own hearts, — is it reason- 
able to suppose- that such a one will take into 
account only the simple fact of belief, and that the 



ERROR, 395 

man will lose or save his soul according as he re- 
jects or receives this or that article of our creed ? 

Is it then true, that sincerity of belief, and not 
correctness of belief, is the point to be attained ? 
Not at all. Because a thing is not black, it does 
not necessarily follow that it is white. The asser- 
tion in question is not wholly without foundation. 
It is the caricature, the exaggeration, of a truth ; 
and it is not to be turned aside with a specious re- 
mark. It is not surprising that such an opinion 
should have gained credence, when we see hum- 
ble and devout Christians in every sect, and works 
of love and mercy wrought under every creed. 
But there is a fallacy, though it would appear to 
be not easy to point it out. 

The assertion is, in the first place, irreverent. 
It assumes that truths which God has thought fit 
to bring within our reach are not worth grasping, 
— that the souls which he made can be nourished 
just as well by falsehood as by truth. It puts the 
type and the thing typified on the same ground. 
The apple which Eve ate was of no consequence, 
but the sin which it symbolized is of terrible mo- 
ment. The brazen serpent was only a molten 
image, but he who hung upon the cross was the 
Lord of glory. Yet the assertion reduces both to 
the same level of intrinsic insicrnificance. 

It is unreasonable. It breaks in upon the anal- 
ogy which obtains througliout nature. Falsehood 
is always deleterious. Falsehood, rested upon, 



396 ERROR, 

and trusted in, as ultimate truth, even In the nat- 
ural sciences, works derangement, and tends to 
cliaos. Surely, spiritual matters are quite as im- 
portant as scientific. If, in them, a slight error in 
the premises expands to grievous error in the con- 
clusion, can it be supposed that spiritual error is 
harmless ? It is true that error may not inevita- 
bly be fatal in the spiritual, any more than in the 
scientific world ; but as, in the latter, content with 
and rest in it effectually bar progress in truth, so 
in the former. In both, wrong is too serious a 
matter to be tampered with. The possible con- 
sequences of wrong opinions are too wide- spread, 
too destructive, to allow any laxity in pursuit of 
truth, any indifference to the reception of false- 
hood. The vertex of an angle rests on a point, 
but the lines that subtend it may stretch far be- 
yond our vision. Nothing is sure but what is 
right, and the possibility of wrong demands as 
great a vigilance as the certainty of wrong. So 
likewise does the possibility of evil consequences. 

So much for the assertion itself. A glance at 
the appearances which induce it. 

Every creed is to be judged by itself, and by its 
tendencies. The first I leave out of view, as not 
germane to this subject. Every sect must be sup- 
posed to have examined its own creed before it 
accepted it. Nobody believes that to be true 
which he judges to be false ; but as in point of 
fact only one of two antagonistic statements can 



. ERROR. 397 

be true, and as the adherents of each sincerely 
beheve their doctrine to be true, Scriptural, and 
inherently reasonable, we come to the very point 
where people say that it is no matter what a man 
believes if he is sincere, and where the refuters 
aforementioned join issue ; and where it is per- 
tinent to bring forward the tendencies of a creed 
to disprove the assertion. Looking at individual 
members of individual churches, and observing 
their patience of hope, and their labor of love, it 
may indeed seem that differences of faith are 
immaterial ; but a creed is to be judged not by 
the life of a single individual who professes it, but 
by the effect which it has on the masses. One 
honest and devout man is a Roman Catholic, and 
worships the Virgin Mary; but if you find that 
the tendencies of the Catholic creed are to ham- 
per the mind and enervate the heart, — if, in 
countries where Catholicism has free course to 
run and be glorified, you see science stifled by 
superstition, literature languishing, the liberal arts 
neglected, progress prevented, — if on every hand 
you see ignorance, servility, and sloth, — while, 
in countries under the influence of a different 
creed, you see a different state of things, — you 
must judge that creed to be a false one, and 
you must see that it is of importance that a man 
believe right. So if you see that one faith seems 
to chill and benumb the heart ; if it freezes the 
genial current of the soul ; if it closes the avenues 



398 ERROR. 

of love and hope and benevolence ; if it makes 
its votaries proud and disdainful and heedless ; if 
it works works of selfishness and frivolity and 
isolation and self-laudation ; or if it makes men 
careless of their duties, and thoughtless of God ; 
or if it culminates in a superstitious rejection of 
all creeds, substituting no creed of its own, but 
only the ghost of a dead negation ; if it exalts 
man above all that is called God ; if it puts the 
works on a level with the worker; if it invests 
stocks and stones with Divine attributes ; if it in- 
vests divinity with infernal attributes ; if it deifies 
lust and hatred and malice and pride and re- 
venge ; — then you must infer not only that the 
creed is false, but that belief or disbelief regard- 
ing it is a matter of the highest importance. 
You see that it does bear fruit, and because its 
fruit as well as its nature is eviJ, it is evil. Two 
or three individuals, or two or three thousand, 
may stem the current of their creed, and preserve 
their integrity. 

" Like the white swan down the troubled stream, 
Whose ruffling pinions have the power to fling 
Aside the turbid drops that darkly gleam, 
And mar the freshness of her snowy wing," 

they may be warm in spite of a cold faith, pure 
in spite of a vile one, or true in spite of a false 
one. But a faith was given for the many, and 
the faith that is most firm and sustaining and 
ennobhng and tender and true is the true faith, 



ERROR. 399 

and such a faith is worth fighting for. Nor do I 
mean to say that there are any who can Hve just 
as well under a false as under a true creed, but 
only that some will not be so wholly shipwrecked 
as others. No man can bow to an idol, and be as 
noble a man as if he worshipped the living God. 
Between God and the man who adores him, 
there is a perpetual ebb and flow. New every 
morning, and fresh every evening, this tidal wave 
bears up our mortal adoration to the skies, and 
sweeps down the Divine effluence into our hearts. 
But the pagan hurtles his soul against a rock, and 
all is dumb and hard and cold. Truth will not 
be discarded with impunity. If a man's life be 
pure with a false faith, it would be dazzling with 
a true one. You cannot have falsehood without 
friction, and if the chariot-wheels run well in 
spite of friction, what speed would they not attain 
if the friction were removed ! 

The very assertion that it is no matter what a 
man believes, if he is only sincere, gives us a 
glimpse of the frightful gulf fixed in some minds 
between belief and practice. It indicates a divorce 
between religion and life, between faith and works, 
of which one cannot think without dismay. No 
matter what a man believes, if he is sincere ? If 
a man is indeed sincere, will he not work himself 
practically right ? If any man will do His will, he 
shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God. 
Thus alone is sincerity of belief valuable. A sin- 



400 ERROR. 

cere belief that does not bear on tlie life, or' that 
bears it down, is little wortli; while if a man is 
indeed searching for truth, if he goes to the Source 
of light for light, if he appHes to the Fountain of 
wisdom, he shall receive wisdom and light and 
truth. No man asks his Heavenly Father for 
bread, and receives a stone. He may go for a 
stone. He may be seeking, not for what is true, 
but for what will build up his opinions, strengthen 
his party, and give him the victory ; and he will 
probably get what he is after. But the man who 
seeks to know what is the will of God concernino; 
him, will be sure to succeed. His sincere belief 
will act on his life, and his life will react on his 
belief. So far as he is sincere, he will follow on 
to know the Lord, and as he goes he will see 
that, though the landmarks are not removed, and 
though every one saith, I am of Paul, and I of 
ApoUos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ, yet 
Christ is not divided. Neither Paul, nor Luther, 
nor Servetus, nor Wesley, was crucified for us ; 
but the ultimate, the momentous, the essential 
fact stands, that there is one Lord, one faith, one 
baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above 
all, and through all, and in all those whose life is 
hid with Christ m God. 



XV, 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 




guage 



T is not possible to be too familiar 
with the spirit or the letter of the 
Bible, nor are people often too much 
addicted to the use of Scripture lan- 
but it is of great importance that it 
be used understandinglj. A passage of Scrip- 
ture, aptly quoted, has often more pith, point, 
power, than anything else could have ; but, inapt, 
it recoils both on him who employs it and on the 
cause which it was intended to further. Some of 
the expressions of self-abasement to be met with in 
prayers, exhortations, and religious books, though 
transferred bodily from the Bible, are injudicious 
and disagreeable. It is not uncommon to hear 
good men call themselves " worms of the dust," 
but the impression produced is unpleasant. You 
feel that the statement is not just. Look at man's 
body only, brimful of hinges, balls, sockets, tubes, 
cells, bags, and strings, with its more than two hun- 



402 WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 

dred beautiful ivory bones, everything ingeniously 
contrived so as to combine the greatest lightness 
with the greatest speed, strength, durabihty, and 
beauty, — a set of complex and delicate machin- 
ery, doing its own oiling and repairing, working 
without friction, and of which the most admired 
inventions of man are but a clumsy imitation. 
Then look at the worm that disfigures your gar- 
den-walk after a shower, — a long, raw, writhing, 
disgusting little fellow, without a bone in his body, 
- — no limbs, no eyes, no lungs to speak of, and 
not so much of a head but that he can spare it 
with the smallest possible inconvenience. Cut 
him in pieces, and he plasters, up the ends and 
makes himself answer. Head or tail, it is all 
one to him, or all two, or all three, as the case 
may be ; the only difference being that, whereas 
he was one before, he is now a mob. And a 
man calls himself such a one as this ! When, in 
addition, you consider that marvellous and awful 
Thing, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
whose substance no man knows, which we cannot 
define, and can describe only by saying what 
it does, — it thinks, it loves, it hopes, it suffers, 
it reasons, it remembers, — that Living Principle 
which sits inscrutable, in solitary state, behind all 
nerve and muscle and blood and brain, without 
which nerve and muscle and blood and brain are 
but so many particles of dust, — what has a man 
in common with a worm ? 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 403 

Do you say that his sinfulness is so great that 
he is an abomination in God's sight ? Then you 
slander the worm ; for he is not an abomination to 
his Maker. I suppose a worm is, in its way, just 
as pleasing to God as an archangel ; that is, the 
worm is just as exactly what God meant before- 
hand a worm should be, as an archangel is. It 
just as truly fulfils the end for which it was cre- 
ated. In its own little sphere — the hole which 
it has bored in the ground — it is like everything 
else which God has made, " good." It cannot sin. 
It never violated law. It never disregarded con- 
science, nor forgot God ; nor has it ever passed, 
or shall it pass, away from its Maker's notice. 
There is, in that respect, no comparison to be made 
between it and a human being. 

Do you say, that, although man is so fearfully 
and wonderfully made, yet, compared with God, 
he is but as the worm to man? But " God cre- 
ated man in his own image, in the image of God 
created he him." ^' Know ye not that ye are the 
temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth 
in you? If any man defile the temple of God, 
him shall God destroy ; for the temple of God is 
holy, which temple ye are." When Deity became 
incarnate, he took not upon him' the nature of 
worms, but of man ; and shall man, the only being 
created in the image of God, the being honored 
above all other created beings in lending his like- 
ness to God manifest in the flesh, and furthermore 



404 WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 

and forever elevated and sanctified thereby, — 
shall he voluntarily debase himself to the level of 
a creature with not a thousandth part of his phys- 
ical, nor a millionth part of his mental faculties, 
nor any of his divine privileges ? This is not 
honoring God. God is never honored by vilifying 
his works. An artist is not honored by decrying 
his pictures. A machinist is not honored by 
treating lightly the engine which he has built» 
God is great, yet man is but little lower than the 
angels. God is great, yet in nothing that we 
know greater than in this, that the man whom 
he has made in his own image, chained down to 
one little world and a few years of time, can, by 
his own wonderful, God-given powers, sweep the 
broad heavens, pierce the deep earth, grasp the in 
finite past, penetrate the infinite future, and be the 
discoverer and the historian of worlds in number- 
less ages before he was born, and boundless space 
where he has never been. Man, man only is made 
after the hkeness of God ; man only is bought with 
a price ; therefore glorify God in youi* body and 
in your spirit, which are God's. 

Probably the phrase in question is generally 
used without thought, without discrimination, al- 
most without meaning. It is found in the Bible, 
and, assuming that anything found there must 
always be available, it is pressed into service^ But 
it should be remembered that the Bible is the 
revelation of God to man through an Eastern na- 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 405 

tlon ; and that Eastern nations, with their warmer 
imaginations and fiercer passions, have a style far 
more highly colored than ours. Phrases which are 
every-day language with them, would be senseless 
extravagance with us. Phrases which express 
our ideas, emotions, and sentiments quite ade- 
quately, would be bald, dry, and tame to them. 
Of course, the revelation of God is tinged by the 
medium through which it passes. That is, the 
earthly part of the Bible, its physical nature, its 
body, that part of it which is not divine, is He- 
brew, Oriental, — not French, nor Celtic, nor 
Anglo-Saxon ; just as Christ was a Jew, and not 
a Spaniard or a Russian. Consequently, the 
Bible has the fervor, the luxuriance, the hyper- 
bole, the warm, poetical, profusely-illustrated style 
which characterizes the literature and the life of 
the East. This should be borne in mind in 
understanding, quoting, and applying it. It is 
necessary in order to avoid misapplication, and a 
savor of hypocrisy, or at least insincerity. For 
example, " The Lord is my rock," would but ill 
personify God's protective benevolence to a sailor, 
to whom rocks are the monsters of the deep, — a 
fear and a dread ; but the dweller in a war-like 
country, where the rock-ribbed hills are fortified 
posts, surmounted with towers, bristling with sol- 
diers, and a refuse ao;ainst all enemies, would feel 
the full force of the Psalmist's exultant song: 
" The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my 



406 WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 

deliverer ; the God of my rock ; in him will I 
trust : he is my shield, and the horn of my salva- 
tion, my high tower, and my refuge, my Saviour ; 
thou savest me from violence." So a dweller in 
sunny lands, who is forced to make toilsome 
journeys over long, low, level, monotonous tracts, 
would naturally represent the loving-kindness of 
God as the shadow of a great rock in a weary- 
land. 

It was natural for Job, born and bred in the 
land of Uz, his children cut off suddenly and 
simultaneously, in the prime of life, his great 
wealth gone, his reputation threatened, if not 
actually destroyed, his person the prey of a foul 
and loathsome disease, in his bitterness and deso- 
lation and fierce self-disgust to say to corruption, 
" Thou art my father ; to the worm. Thou art 
my mother, and my sister." It was not unnat- 
ural that David — an outcast from his country 
and king ; getting his bread by downright lying ; 
feigning madness, scrabbling on the doors, and 
letting his spittle fall down upon his beard, to 
save himself from the sword of Achishj hunted 
by a half-crazy, but strong and savage king, 
from post to post ; hiding in mountain, and wil- 
derness, and dens, and caves, and every available 
lurking-place ; the jest of servile cojirtiers ; the 
captain of a rabble of malecontents and distressed 
debtors — should -exclaim in despondency, "lam 
a worm, and no man ; a reproach of men, and 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 407 

despised of the people." But for an intelligent 
New-Englander of good habits, good principles, 
good conduct, good health ; familiar with abstract 
ideas, and unaccustomed to metaphor ; who un- 
derstands the difference between moral and nat- 
ural ability ; calls his children George and Jane, 
and not " the Son of my Sorrow," or '' the De- 
light of the Lord," — for him calmly to pronounce 
himself a worm, is not consistent, to say the least. 
His conduct and bearing do not indicate that deep, 
prostrating, overwhelming sense of unworthiness 
which his words imply. He is coherent, method- 
ical, self-possessed, — listens attentively to others, 
shakes hands and exchanges salutations with his 
friends afterwards, and is extremely cheerful, com- 
fortable, and contented — for a worm. If he felt 
as he spoke, would tliis be so ? What did Job do ? 
He sat down among the ashes, and scraped him- 
self with a bit of broken earthenware, in a grief so 
distressing, so profound, and so appalling, that for 
seven days and nights his friends dared not speak 
a word unto him. It should be a grief akin to 
this that should stir our cool blood to such violent 
speech. On the contrary, as far as I have ob- 
served, it is done with entire complacency, and 
the inference can but be that the man speaks not 
because he feels, but because he does not feel. 
We suspect the sincerity of his humility. A man 
must have a pretty good opinion of himself in 
private, to risk the defamation of his character in 



408 WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 

public. You do not hear a miserly Christian call- 
ing himself stingy in the prayer-meeting, nor will 
an untrustworthy church-member calmly accuse 
himself of lying, or a gossiping sister affirm 4hat 
she is a common tattler and mischief-maker. But 
a man may confess himself in general terms a 
worm, without meaning anything in particular ; 
and at the same time soothe his conscience, and 
perhaps really believe that he is devoutly and 
sincerely humble, or, at any rate, not suspect the 
contrary. Let, however, his partner in the shop, 
or his political friend or rival, intimate to him in 
a secular and special way that he is a little weak 
in mind, or morally unsound, and he will soon dis- 
cover that, unUke worms, he has bright eyes, well- 
defined lungs and tongue, not to say fists and feet. 

GK)d requires no morbid humiliation, even when 
sincere. Job was undoubtedly sincere, yet the 
Lord answered him out of the whirlwind, " Who 
is this that darkejieth counsel by words without 
knowledge ? Gird up now thy loins like a 
man ! " 

But every idle word that men shall speak — idle 
Avords of humility or idle words of pride ^ — they 
shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. 

True humility does not require a man to rate 
himself at other than his real value. It never en- 
joins upon him to sink below, any more than it 
permits him to rise above, his proper level. If 
humility consists, as Jeremy Taylor says, in hav- 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 409 

ing a real mean and low opinion of one's self, then 
was he not humble who asserted himself to be the 
Light of the world. The sincerest humility does 
not prevent a man from recognizing what is honor- 
able in his character, any more than it prevents 
him from ignoring what is dishonorable. It will 
not make a man accuse himself of sins of which 
he is not guilty, any more than it will make him 
attribute to himself virtues which he does not pos- 
sess. This is readily seen in matters which are 
cognizable by the senses, and can be testified to in 
a court of justice ; but it is not always clearly seen 
in points more metaphysical. No honest man, 
however sorry for sin, confesses himself a thief; 
but repentant Christians frequently rise in prayer- 
meetings, and lament that they are dead in tres- 
passes and sins. Yet it is not possible that they 
are so. Dead ? The very fact that they say it 
— always supposing them to be sincere, and not 
hypocrites — shows that they are not. " Dead 
men tell no tales." Dead men — I mean, as they 
do, men spiritually dead — do not speak at all. 
They do not think about their sins. They do not 
Know that they have committed any ; and if they 
aid, they would not care. They do evil just as 
willmgly as good. They are entirely indifferent to 
the Character and the claims of God. Just so long 
AS a man feels that he is a sinner, just so long he 
ma\ know that he is alive, — perhaps not very 
fceen3y, and watchfully, and jubilantly alive, but 

18 



410 WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE, 

alive enough to have consciousness. He may not 
be in a healthy state : his head may be sick, and 
his heart faint, but he still lives. Whatever else 
is true of him, it is not true that he is dead. To 
be dead is to be without life, without warmth, 
without feeling, or reason, or desire, or despair, or 
hope, or fear, or purpose ; and it is wrong for a man, 
w^ho has enough of any or all of these to be aw^are 
of his condition, to call himself dead. St. Paul 
tells the Ephesians that they were dead in tres- 
passes and sins ; but they knew nothing about it till 
God had quickened them. A knowledge of past 
death may come with resurrection ; but in death 
itself there is no remembrance, no consciousness. 

Nor is it at all certain that the Church is as cold 
and dead as its members are apt to say in prayer- 
meetings. They who assert it are beyond their 
depth. Men know very little of the lives, still less 
of the hearts, of their brothers and sisters, and they 
are generally incompetent to pass judgment. The 
brother who seems to you altogether too much given 
up to the pursuit of worldly profit, to the accumula- 
tion of property, may be cherishing in his inmost 
heart, and planning in his eager brain, and shaping 
with his skilful hand, some darling scheme, which 
shall redound a thousand-fold to the glory of Christ 
and the Church. The gay girl who seems to you to 
have far too much of the butterfly for life's serious- 
ness, may be doing her w^ork just as conscientiously 
as the Apostle Paul did his. How do you know 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 411 

that there is not a method in her gayety? How 
do you know that she does not beheve it to be her 
Christian duty and Divine mission, as well as inno- 
cent pleasure, to throw what little sunshine she 
may on the severe outlines and sombre coloring of 
life ? " Be sober, be vigilant," rings in your ears, 
but the voice that sings through her soul says, "Re- 
joice evermore" ; and both are divine. May it not 
be that the supposed miser, who earns your disap- 
probation and contempt, has not one quarter of the 
income which you lay to his account, or has four 
times the expenditure ? What do you know of the 
poor relations, the distant dependents, the obscure 
charities, the mherited debts, the hampering ties, 
that hold him back ? You think your brother 
who goes to sleep in church must have grown 
lukewarm ; but suppose you had gone to the 
marshes to make hay, for three, or four, or five 
days past, getting up at two o'clock in the morn- 
ing, driving your team half a dozen imles, mowing, 
raking, cocking, spreading, loading hay till night- 
fall, up to your knees in water half the time, — or 
suppose you had been carrying that hay to mar- 
ket, twenty miles away, driving your team on foot 
over the frozen ground, — or suppose you had been 
harassed by the complications of your business, by 
fears of bankruptcy, and a consequent sacrifice of 
your reputation for sagacity, not to say honor, — 
or suppose that in any way the perplexities of hfe 
had been unusually aggressive, as they sometimes 



412 WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 

are, — would it be the most unnatural thing in the 
world if, when you had put them away from you 
on the first day of the week, and were sitting 
tranquilly in a quiet room, you should fall asleep ? 
It is not necessarily religious indifference. It may 
be bodily fatigue. The spirit may be willing, and 
the flesh only weak. I trust I shall not be consid- 
ered as justifying or excusing avarice, frivolity, or 
criminal indifference. Undoubtedly people some- 
times get more tired than they have any right to 
do. They fret over their business more than a 
Christian should. A man with a grand benevo- 
lence hi view may neglect, many small benevo- 
lences to which it is equally his duty to attend. 
But what I wish is simply to suggest that things 
are not always what they seem, and it is Chris- 
tian charity, sometimes, to give human nature 
the benefit of the doubt. The flesh may inno- 
cently, nay, perhaps virtuously, be weak. In all 
matters which lie beneath the surface, God alone 
is judge. If a church steals, and slanders, and lies, 
and backbites, not episodically, by an individual 
here and there, as very likely most churches do, 
but right on, steadily, without let or hinderance, 
we cannot help supposing it to be cold ; but so 
long as it behaves properly, so long as its morals 
are pure, we cannot say that its heart is not warm. 
Not that morality is all that there is of religion, — 
not that good morals are the whole duty of man. 
It is perhaps possible to be quite right in our 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 413 

relations to man, and quite wrong in our rela- 
tions to God ; but our relations to God lie be- 
tween ourselves and God, and beyond the range 
of others' vision. You may infer that the Church, 
is cold, but you do not know it, and it is often in- 
ferred from only a partial consideration of facts ; 
and when you rise in your place and affirm your in- 
ference as a fact, you are, with the most innocent, 
and probably the most laudable intentions, slan- 
dering the Church. Some who hear you know it. 
They know that they are neither cold ii or stupid. 
They feel the love of Christ shed abroad in their 
hearts. They have constant communion with him. 
They draw their life from him, and with them 
your sweeping assertion goes for nothing, or for 
something very different from what you intend. 
There are others who will take your words as true. 
They will believe and lament that they are cold 
and dead ; yet, should you ask them whether 
they are interested in the spread of the Gospel, 
whether they desire for their children, above all 
things, love to God, whether they value for them- 
selves God's approval more than any other good, 
whether they endeavor to be honest towards 
all, whether they really try to do their best, 
whether they are sincerely repentant for sin, 
whether they pray every day for pardon and sus- 
tenance, — they will answer you unhesitatingly, 
heartily, and truly, ^es. Perhaps they do not 
join in public worship so often as you think they 



414 WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 

ought. Perhaps they do not pray in the syna- 
gogues with much fluency and unction. Perhaps 
they do not organize benevolent societies so heart- 
ily, or sustain them so wisely, as might be desired; 
but what of it? Those things are not religion. 
They may be only a screen to conceal its ab- 
sence. It may be that they have different views 
from yours as to the propriety or desirableness 
of such measures, or they may not have exec- 
utive ability, or there may be no leadmg mind 
among them to direct their piety into these chan- 
nels. Let a man who knows how to guide men 
go among them, and it is quite possible that your 
cold, dead church will show at once that the 
sap was coursing there ; for leaf, and bud, and 
blossom, and ripening fruit, will attest its living 
and life-giving presence. I think the apparent 
coldness of the churches is often the result of 
mismanagement on the part of leaders. They do 
not take hold of things by the handle. They 
do not get any purchase. They shoot wide of 
the mark. They never get at the root of the 
matter. Their want of tact and skill may not be 
their fault ; and it is unfortunate that the same 
incapacity which prevents them from doing the 
work prevents them also from seeing that it is 
not necessarily the fault of others. 

I never can resist the temptation to take up the 
cudgel in behalf of those who have not what 
George Stephenson called the " gift of the gab." 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 415 

It seems to me, sometimes, tliat nobody in tlie 
world is so misunderstood and maligned as they. 
Strange that a man always fluent, and ever ready 
to take part in exhortation and prayer, will ac- 
quire in a month a reputation for active piety 
which a man just as pure of life, but without his 
gifts, will acquire only after the lapse of years. 
It is quite right in judging a man to be a warm- 
hearted Christian so far as he talks like one, 
because talking is one kind of action, — one of 
the fruits by which we know the Clmstian, and 
a fruit which comes to maturity sooner than any 
other, and will of course receive earliest recogni- 
tion ; but it is wrong to go beyond this, and judge 
a man to be cold-hearted because he lacks this 
power of expression. It does not materially alter 
the case if he says so himself. Grind it into a 
school- boy that he is stupid, and he will think 
he is stupid. Christians of whom the world was 
not worthy have been so belabored, so often 
told that they were lukewarm and backward 
and worldly by those who ought to have known 
better, so sincerely and lugubriously bemoaned 
over by those who did not know better, that 
they came to believe it themselves, against the 
facts. They hear a person speak warmly, elo- 
quently, and impressively of religion. They can- 
not speak so themselves. If they have been 
brought up to consider that the difference is owing 
to the other person's superior piety, the probability 
is that they will accept the statement. 



416 WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 

Mrs. Stowe says that her Dr. Hopkins " in 
general viewed himself on the discouraging side, 
and had berated and snubbed himself all his life as 
a most flagitious and evil-disposed individual, — a 
person to be narrowly watched, and capable of 
breaking at any moment into the most flagrant 
iniquity " ; and what Mrs. Stowe said playfully 
of a romance-hero may be said in earnest of many 
a living Christian. Many honestly seem to be- 
lieve it to be a Christian duty to have a " real 
mean and low opinion of themselves." There 
would be a defect in their orthodoxy if this were 
not the . case. They have read the memoirs of 
Brainerd, and Martyn, and Page, and Payson, 
and David, and Paul, and they think, if these emi- 
nently holy men felt such an abhorrence of them- 
selves, how much more should common people, 
who are in no wise eminent for holiness ; and 
having decided, or rather falling into the opinion, 
that they ought to feel as deeply and deplore as 
heartily as these men did, it is not hard for them 
to believe that they do thus feel, and can sincerely 
thus deplore ; and consequently they fall to de- 
nouncing themselves in the most emphatic terms. 
If one should say to them at the close of a sum- 
mer's day that he did not think he had committed 
any sin through that day, that he believed God was 
pleased with him, that he had done nothing that 
day of which he need repent, they would be almost 
as much shocked as if he had poured out a volley 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 417 

of oaths. But is such a thing beyond the limits 
of possibihty ? Is God, indeed, so hard a master 
that Christians of five, ten, twenty years' standing 
cannot pass a day without falhng under his wrath 
and curse ? Or is Christianity so feeble a power, 
that, after eighteen hundred years of effort, it can- 
not bring the human heart and the human life 
into closer harmony with the Divine ? It is not 
to be supposed. I put the Brainerds and the 
Martyns out of view. They were men, and no 
inward divine impulse kept them from recording 
morbid feelings or false views. Their sorrows 
were almost entirely for intangible sins, — sins 
w^hich lay within their own hearts, and of which 
nobody but themselves and God could judge. 
Therefore they ought never to have been spread 
before the world. It is the relation between 
crime and penalty, between sin and sorrow, 
which it behooves men to know. The law is not 
magnified by publishing the punishment, and with- 
holding the crime for which the punishment was 
inflicted. To outward observers, the sorrow of 
these men was out of all proportion to their sin ; 
because the sin was of such a nature that no out- 
ward observer could judge of its magnitude. But 
with the Bible people the case is clearer. When 
St. Paul declared himself to be the chief of sin- 
ners, he gave his reasons for it, — reasons intelh- 
gible to every one. It was because he had been 
a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious. We 

18* AA 



418 WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 

are distinctly told how he went through Judaea 
and Samaria, making havoc of the Church, enter- 
ing into every house, haling men and women, 
and committing them to prison. It was this 
persecution of the Church of God that loomed 
up ever behind him, — the great sin of his life, — 
that made him in his own eyes unworthy to be 
called an Apostle. But I think no one can read 
St. Paul's writino-s with the same candor which 
he brings to other books, without seeing that, when 
Paul speaks of his sins, he is thinking of what he 
was before that great light shone upon him near 
Damascus. We are not left in doubt as to his 
views of his subsequent character. " By the 
grace of God I am what I am." " I labored 
more abundantly than they all." Yery little self- 
denunciation will be found in Paul when he had 
ceased to be Saul. David expresses the most vile 
opinion of himself; "Behold, I was shapen in 
iniquity ; and in sin did my mother conceive me." 
Well he might, after the commission of a crime 
whose greatness was only paralleled by its mean- 
ness ; but take the Psalms through, and David 
seems to have been extremely well satisfied with 
himself. He even throws himself back on his in- 
tegrity. He prays to be judged accordmg to his 
righteousness. "My defence," he says, "is of 
God, which saveth tJie upright in heart.'' " The 
Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness ; 
according to the cleanness of my hands hath he 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 419 

recompensed me." The fact is, Paul and David, 
especially Paul, were men of grand good sense. 
The sins that they talked about were sins that 
you can get hold of. And when they had re- 
pented of them, and were forgiven, they let the 
matter rest. They did not quarrel with generali- 
ties. They were not continually on the lookout 
against themselves. They embraced Christ joy- 
fully, fought the Devil within and without man- 
fully, till they had finished their course. 

Christ's religion is an efficient agent. His 
blood deanseth from all sin. When he told the 
woman to go and sin no more, he did not tell 
her to do what she had not moral, natural, and 
every kind of ability to do. When he bade his 
disciples to be perfect, he meant so. It is, it must 
be, just as possible for a Christian to go on day 
after day without offending God, as it is for a son 
to go on without offending his father. It is not 
pride and vainglory to assert this. It is a rob- 
bing of God to deny it. If religion cannot do 
this, certainly religion is not what it claims to be. 
Christ came to save this people from their sins. 
Is his arm shortened that he cannot save ? O ye 
of little faith, wherefore do ye doubt ? God is 
not a hard master. He claims to reap only where 
he has sowed. He comes to gather in only the 
harvest that he has strewed. His yoke is easy, 
his burden is light. When he forgives, he for- 
gives wholly, and forever. At any moment we 



420 WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 

maj begin with a clean record. All the past is 
cancelled. He will never again bring it up against 
■Qs. We need never again bring it up against our- 
selves, — never at all, except, as Paul did, to mag- 
nify the grace of God. Once pronounced " not 
guilty " through faith, we shall never be prose- 
cuted on the same indictment. We are pure and 
clean in the blood of the everlasting covenant. 
The Chi'ist that is within us will so work to will 
and to do God's good pleasure, that every day 
and hour and moment may be bright with the 
Father's smiles, and 'ring with his ''Well done, 
good and faithful servant ! " 

It may be suggested that it is rather late to 
discover that men are apt to think of themselves 
less highly than they ought to think. The ten- 
dency has been generally supposed to lie in the 
opposite dii'ection ; and so it may. That is, the 
assertion may be true of human nature general- 
ly, and yet untrue applied to certain opinions of 
a certain class comprised in a certain other class. 
Church-members are but a small part of the world, 
and the church-members who have been bred to 
this way of thinking may be in small ratio to all 
the church-members in the world, though they 
are numerous in certain localities. Moreover, 
all the people who hold this language towards 
themselves do not probably rate themselves so 
low as their words indicate. It is a great mis- 
take to suppose that, because a man is not a liar, 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 421 

he always speaks the truth. Yery few people 
get into the inside of words.' Expressions of 
self-abasement do not necessarily imply self^ abase- 
ment. A great deal will be gained when men" 
shall have learned to say exactly v^hat they mean, 
when they profess to mean what they say. Men 
can confess that they are great sinners, and not 
feel very uncomfortable about it, — in fact, take 
considerable satisfaction in it. It seems, some- 
how, as if one had set one's self right. It 
takes off the edge of all censure. I have heard a 
good many public confessions of sin that bore no 
signs of humiliation. Of course, no one can tell 
what is in a man's heart ; but the words and the 
manner did not correspond. For a sinner is a 
thousand removes from a rascal. You can avow 
yourself a sinner without forfeiting your posi- 
tion in church or society, and without exciting 
suspicion in your own heart. And just here is 
one of the evils arising from this wrong way of 
thinking and speaking. A legion of little vices 
may escape unnoticed under cover of a general 
confession, or even sense, of unworthiness. In la- 
menting over generalities, we pass over specialties. 
We confess sins, but forget faults. But there is 
no such thing as abstract sins. There is no such 
thing as transo^ressing; God's law without doincr 
something. Sinning is being selfish, stealing, 
cheating, telling lies, slandering people, dawdling 
away time, eating what is known to be injurious, 



422 WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 

making yourself unnecessarily disagreeable, taking 
advantage of yoifr position to make out your own 
case, and not giving your opponent any chance 
for a hearing. Sin is all manner of meanness. 
Now if, when people make a public confession of 
sin, they would confess their sins as Paul did, it 
might be of service. This is sometimes done in 
what are called " re\dvals," and it is generally ac- 
companied by unmistakable signs of contrition, and 
followed by sincere, and often successful, efforts 
at reformation. I would suggest, therefore, that, 
when church-members lament that they are dead 
in trespasses and sins they specify the particular 
sins in which they died. So their death may serve 
as a warning; to others. 

But granting, as of course CA^ery one does, that 
Christians ought not to express emotions which 
they do not feel, it may be questioned whether 
good taste would allow them to make their own 
righteousness prominent. But if good taste allows 
men publicly to vilify themselves, I do not see why 
it should not allow them publicly to justify them- 
selves, — especially as their sins are their own 
fault, and their graces are the gift of God. It is 
not an individual, not even human nature, but the 
plan of salvation, that is on trial. Human nature 
is granted on all sides to be totally or partially de- 
praved. Calvinists and Socinians agree in this, 
that a child left to himself bringeth his mother to 
shame. The point to be decided is, whether, when 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE, 423 

religion is brought to bear upon human nature, it 
is strong enough to rectify human nature. There 
are generally many present at prayer-meetings who 
have not turned their feet unto the testimonies of 
God. If lamentation and reproaches be upper- 
most there, will not these people say: " Of what 
use is this religion that they talk so much about ? 
According to their own showing, it does not 
seem to make them good, and we are not any 
worse than bad. We may as well wait a little 
longer." 

St. Paul again stands us in good stead. He 
does not like to speak of himself. He is pro- 
fuse of apologies when it becomes necessary. As 
a gentleman, he shrinks from displaying a per- 
sonal prominence ; but since the truth requires it, 
he comes out in full force. His native modesty 
cannot help holding back a little, but he clenches 
the fact thoroughly before he leaves it. He who 
had not thought himself meet to be called an 
Apostle, because he persecuted the Church of God, 
now declares himself not a whit behind the very 
chiefest Apostles. " I speak as a fool," he de- 
clares, half indignant at being forced into such a 
position ; " but I will say the truth," interposes his 
sturdy conscience. " I am become a fool in glo- 
rying," he repeats uneasily, " but ye have com- 
pelled me : for I ought to have been commended 
of you ; for in nothing am I behind the very 
chiefest Apostles. As the truth of Clirist is in me, 



424 WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 

no man shall stop me of this boasting." Why 
does he do this? Because they sought a proof 
of Christ speaking in him. When they mistrusted 
him he asserted himself, and this self-assurtion was 
honoring God. He assumed to be the accredited 
ambassador of Christ, and it behooved him to 
show that the grace which was bestowed upon him 
was not in vain. " I labored more abundantly 
than they all ; yet not I, but the grace of God 
which was with me." So should we fill ourselves 
with Christ, that we be not tormented with a per- 
petual self-consciousness. When one feels that 
any part of his own history or experience is ne- 
cessary to vindicate truth, and glorify God, he 
should declare it boldly, honestly, intelligibly, 
definitely, as Paul did; not restrained on the one 
side by a false delicacy, nor puffed up on the 
other by a presumptuous, ignorant conceit of self- 
righteousness. And when the interests of truth 
do not require this, he should hold his peace. For 
my part, I cannot conceive how a person who has 
any consciousness of sin or of sinfulness can ever 
talk about it. 

But take things at their worst. Suppose a 
church is cold, what is the good of saying so ? 
Few things so lower the mercury at a prayer- 
meeting as the doleful periods of a doleful man, 
— " church cold and stupid," " ways of Zion 
mourn," " few come to her solemn feasts," " left 
her first love," " sluggish and worldly." The 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 425 

very thought of it is chilling. Suppose you are 
cold, is melancholy the only resource ? What 
does a man do when he is cold ? He bestirs 
himself, goes to the fire, rubs his hands, stamps 
his feet, chops wood, walks briskly, till vigor- 
ous blood leaps along his veins, and every finger- 
end tingles. Go ye and do likewise. The very 
fact that few are present makes it the more 
necessary that the meeting should be interesting 
and inviting, in order that those few may come the 
next time, and perhaps bring a few more with 
them. The worldliness of the church is very 
indifi'erent fare to those who attend its gatherings. 
If they are to have nothing better to feed on than 
their own husks, they might as well stay at home ; 
and they probably will. No. If you are cold, 
or the church is cold, do not mention it. You 
will only freeze the harder. Begin and do some- 
thing to get warm. Head the Bible. Pray 
more. Pray definitely. Do not pray so much 
for things in general. Do not repent of your 
Avorldliness, but repent that you dropped a three- 
cent-piece into the contribution-box when your 
income would have allowed a dime, and be sure 
to put in seventeen cents the next time. Choose 
some person to pray for, for a limited time, and 
then choose another, and be on the lookout for a 
chance to influence those persons in other ways. 
Organize a missionary society, or a Sunday-school 
class. Think of something pleasant, or soothing, 



426 WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 

or encouraging, or warning, to say to stray souls. 
Find out the old people, and the poor people, and 
the blind people, and the drunken people, and the 
suspicious people, and the sorrowful people, and 
get hold of them. Tell stories to the children, 
make the overtasked man laugh, smuggle thoughts 
into empty heads, and reflections into careless 
hearts, and do not go about shivering. There are 
a thousand ways to get warm, and remember that 
heat always seeks an equilibrium. If you are 
cold you will cool others, and if you are warm you 
will set others aglow. If you have been guilty of 
pubhc sins, confess them, and see to it that you 
forsake them. If you feel called upon to illus- 
trate the loving-kindness, the boundless mercy of 
Christ by a relation of any part of your private 
history, do it modestly and quietly. Remem- 
ber that at best you speak as a fool, and that 
your only plea can be Paul's, " Yet as a fool re- 
ceive me." 

And whether you confess open or hidden tres- 
passes, and whenever you speak of a state of heart 
opposed to God, be sure you do it in the past 
tense. Why ? Because at the time you speak, 
you have, of course, stopped sinning. If you 
have not, why are you talking ? Do you mean 
to confess sins in wdiich you still indulge ? By no 
means. It is he that confesseth and forsaketh his 
sins that shall find mercy. You were a thief, you 
were a drunkard, you did shave notes, you did 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 427 

backbite your superiors, but you do it no longer. 
"When you are thoroughly warmed, you can, if 
you choose, say that you were cold. After God 
has quickened you, you may thankfully admit that 
you were dead in trespasses and sins. But when 
you address your brethren, be guileless. You can 
be. Forgiveness is entire. However wicked you 
may have been, begin at once to be good, and if 
you do not wholly succeed at the first trial, be as 
good as you can be. Extol the goodness of God. 
Men are far more easily moved to virtue by a 
good example, than repelled from vice by a bad. 
They are far more apt to emulate the good, than 
to shun the evil. Look on the encouraging side 
of things. Point out the hopeful signs. Exalt 
man's capabilities ; in so doing you exalt God, his 
maker. Magnify his office ; to God is all the 
glory. Take him at his highest, and he will press 
on to grander heights. Draw him from the front, 
as Eastern shepherds draw their flocks, and do 
not always drive him from behind. " Allure to 
brighter worlds, and lead the way." If you must 
record your sorrow, record at the same time your 
joy. Let God's abundant mercy overshine and 
dazzle away your guilt. Let every tear be rain- 
bowed in smiles. Let every " Alas ! Master," 
have its " Hallelujah ! " Be full of gratitude, and 
trust, and love, and life. Be helpful, and hopeful, 
and lusty, and cheery. So shall not only your soul 
be filled with a joy that no man can take from 



428 WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 

jou, but the cold churcli around you will insensi- 
bly and surely melt away in this new light and 
warmth which you diffuse, and where it stiffened, 
a new temple shall arise whose Holy of Holies will 
enshrme the sacred fire forever. 

Besides these words of self-depreciation, there 
are words of comfort spoken so without knowledge 
that they irritate rather than console. Their com- 
fort is founded on measurements. Good people 
see men unhappy, and they undertake to demon- 
strate that such unhappiness is unreasonable and 
ungrateful, because there are so many more happy 
circumstances in life than there are unhappy ones. 
" Reckon up your blessings," they say, ^' see how 
greatly they outnumber your annoyances, and 
cease to be annoyed. Count the gifts that have 
been bestowed upon you, and be ashamed that you 
are so distressed because one or two things go 
wronor." 

o 

This may be unanswerable in point of fact, but 
men and women, especially women, will never be 
happy because it is proved in a syllogism that 
they ought to be happy. The theory may look 
well on paper, and trip smoothly from the tongue, 
but the moment it is set to work, it will get out 
of gear. 

For evil and good are not commensurate. Their 
power bears no proportion to their bulk. A little 
evil may, from the nature of things, not from the 
ingratitude of man, neutralize a great good. It 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 429 

may be demonstrably true, that by far the greater 
number of circumstances that surround a man are 
pleasant, yet one unpleasant one shall invalidate 
them all, — not because he perversely refuses to 
recognize the pleasure, but because the pain is 
more penetrative and more diffusive. A man has 
a faithful wife, noble children, honor, and health, 
and wealth, — but one wayward son, whose life is 
a constant shame and terror, embitters this para- 
dise. He has more power to make miserable than 
all the rest have to make happy. He poisons 
the very fountain of happiness. Even a much 
smaller evil may work oblivion of good. A severe 
attack of toothache will make a man for a time 
indifferent to every advantage. One little tooth 
is ridiculous, when compared with houses and 
lands and influences, but one little tooth disturbed 
will assert its claims with a pertinacity that insures 
more attention than ambition or love can secure. 
A single spot on a coat spoils the coat, though 
not one twentieth as large. An unseen worm 
bores an insignificant hole in the ship's side, — in- 
significant compared with the uninjured portion, — 
but the defect is stronger than the strength, and 
overpowers it ; and the grand and stately ship 
goes staggering down into the black waters. So 
in character, a man may be loyal, benevolent, and 
intelligent, yet so peevish, fretful, or suspicious, 
that his society is disagreeable, or he may be so 
self-conceited as to forfeit respect, or so uncleanly 



4S0 WORDS WITHOUT KXOWLEDGE. 

and uncouth as to be justly outlavred. One evil 
expands itself, and usurps the place of much good. 
One rice swallows up a thousand virtues. 

There is a Divine recognition of this fact in the 
Apostle James's assertion, " For whosoever shall 
keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, 
he is guilty of all." 

Therefore, all comfort based on the ratio of 
good and evil is futile. It is founded on a fal- 
lacy, and when the waves of sorrow dash against 
it, its fall is certain. It will do tolerably so 
long as we are not in trouble, but when trouble 
comes, it is nothing, and worse than nothing, 
and vanity — not to say exasperation. You get 
small relief from the man who says, " You have 
a felon on your hand, to be sure, but you have 
money and fame and troops of friends, and you 
ought not to mind it."' Xor is it any comfort 
to compare your trouble with somebody else's 
greater. A pin does not prick you any more 
gently and agreeably because your neighbor has 
had his arm cut off. The two hundred dollars' 
rent which your tenant cheats you out of, is just 
as mucli a loss to you as if your friend had not 
been cheated out of his whole fortune. You may 
be glad that you are not in his place, but it does 
not make your place any pleasanter. 

Sorrow is to be recoonized as sorrow. Xothincr 
is gained by arguing it out of the way. It is pre- 
supposing and fostering an unmanly weakness, to 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 431 

assume that a man cannot bear whatever burden 
God imposes upon him, but must be cajoled into 
the belief that it is not much of a burden, before 
he will undertake it. A man loses his property. 
It is true that he has wife and children, health and 
honor left, and these are much ; but the loss of 
property is a great loss. Money commands time 
and space. Money brings beauty and elegance 
and comfort and culture. Money means eyes 
to the blind, and feet to the lame, and warmth 
to the chilled, and clothes to the naked, and hope 
to the despairing, and strength to the weak ; 
and the man who loses this has met with a se- 
vere loss. 

But the comfort lies not veiy much in pointing 
out what he has left, — for he had all those before 
he lost anything, — but in remembering that God, 
in whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our 
ways, appoints to every man his lot, and all things 
— pain, sickness, weariness, poverty, length of 
days, riches, and honor — all things work together 
for good to them that love God. He could, if he 
had chosen, make every man great and rich and 
powerful. That he has not done this, proves that 
he did not will to do it. We feel that, if we were 
rich, or eloquent, or self-possessed, we could do a 
great deal more good than we can now, but our 
A^ery weaknesses may, and should, become " nim- 
ble servitors to do His will." The chosen path is 
barred to our eager feet. One obstacle stands in 



432 WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 

the way of success. A single circumstance, small 
but not slight, forces us from the life that we like 
to the one we do not like. One drop of sour spoils 
the whole cup of sweet. But it is of the Lord, 
and he means us only good. Fortitude may be as 
heroic as courao;e. Patience is as sublime as 
strength. " They also serve who only stand and 
wait." " Knowledge by suffering entereth." In 
the immovable shadow of a great sorrow, or in the 
flickering shade of many little sorrows, all virtue 
may flourish. - The utmost grandeur of character 
may be attained by uncomplaining, not stoical, 
submission to the Divine will. Alone with sor- 
row, alone with trial, man communes with his 
Maker, and finds his grace sufficient. From the 
grave of a dead hope we may rise to newness of 
life. From a disappointed ambition we may work 
out a far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
glory. There is no strength like the strength 
of him who has breasted his disappointments 
and overcome them, — whose feet are planted 
upon the wrecks of his own plans, and whose 
eyes are lifted unto the hills, whence help com- 
eth. 

We are told by naturalists that the tones of birds 
seem to indicate a certain degree of discontent ; 
that " the almost uninterrupted song of caged birds 
proves their singing to be no certain evidence of 
happiness. It is well known that, when an old bird 
from our own fields is caught and caged, he will 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 433 

continue his tunefulness long after all others of the 
same species, who enjoy their freedom, have be- 
come silent." 

This is a not inapt illustration of the workings 
of the human soul. Some of the finest produc- 
tions of genius have been born of a grief that tra- 
vailed in anguish, waiting deliverance. It was 
" in the narrow chamber of his neglected old age," 
hiding from a hostile king, shut out from the light 
of the happy sun, that the eyes of Milton opened 
upon the glories of Paradise, and there burst from 
his tranced lips " a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs 
and harping symphonies." Still, with a grand 
organ-roll, the echoes of that solemn song sweep 
down the corridors of time, nor shall any age be 
found so base as to close its ear to that Heav- 
enly Muse which erst did soar above the Aonian 
Mount. 

Cowper's life was one long pang. The cloud 
hovered over his infancy, deepened and darkened 
above his manhood, and settled around his dying 
bed with an impenetrable gloom. Occasional rifts 
show how brilliant was the light beyond, but never 
its silver lining was turned towards him ; and 
Death came, no King of Terrors, but a divine 
messenger, at whose word 

" Heaven opened wide 
Her ever- during gates." 

Now in a million hearts the songs that warbled 

19 BB 



434 WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 

up from this breaking heart awake an answering 
thrill, and the prayer of all sighing souls is voiced 
in that mournful lyre, 

" O for a closer walk with God, 
A calm and heavenly frame, 
A light to shine upon the road 
Tliat leads me to the Lamb ! " 

Thus it has been, and thus it shall be under the 
sun. It is the crushed grape that gives out the 
blood-red wine. It is the suffering soul that 
breathes the sweetest melodies. That Holy Life 
which eighteen hundred years ago lit up forever- 
more this valley of shadows, w^as exceeding sor- 
rowful, even unto death. The Blessed One trod 
the wine-press alone. From an agony into which 
mortal eyes may never look rang out the new 
song of peace on earth, good-will to men. Ever 
since, as ever before, the voice of humanity is a 
loud and bitter cry. Genius smites his harp to 
relieve the unsatisfied want of his soul. His verse 
is tremulous with gathered tears. 

Fear not, little flock. It is your Father's good 
pleasure to give you the kingdom. Somewhere, 
and at some time, the redeemed soul shall realize 
its loftiest conception, — nay, rather, the truth 
shall transcend his idea ; for eye hath not seen, 
nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the 
heart of man, the things which God hath pre- 
pared for them that love him. The white blos- 
soms of hope shall then ripen to purple fruit- 



WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 



435 



age, and the full soul shall bask in the glory 
of her God. 

" The poet now hath entered in 
The place of rest which is not sin. 

" And while he rests, his songs, in troops, 
Walk up and down our earthly slopes. 
Companioned by diviner hopes. 

" ' Glory to God — to God ! ' he saith : 
Knowledge by suffering entereth ; 
And life is perfected by Death ! " 




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